Brent Crater Observation Tower

The Brent Crater Observation Tower is a raised viewpoint over the wooded rim of Algonquin's impact crater, with interpretive panels about how it was found. I'd stop if you're already driving Brent Road through this part of the park; the tower has its own small roadside lot, so you can see the basin without walking the full route. The moderate 2 km loop descends to the crater's present floor and climbs back to the tower. The trail requires a valid park permit.

The tower lot is at Brent Road km 32, about 32 km south of Highway 17 and 8 km north of Cedar Lake–Brent Access Point. That's a long approach for one viewpoint, so it makes more sense as part of a drive through the park's northern interior than as a quick detour from the highway.

The crater remnant is a broad, forested basin, not a bare rock bowl. Trees soften its circular outline, so the shape can be subtle from the tower. Tecumseh and Gilmour lakes form a semicircle within the depression, a clue to the crater's outline from above.

For a photo, keep the timber rail and some foreground canopy in the frame. They anchor the distant rim and make it clear you're looking out from the tower.

Aviation-company owner John A. Roberts first recognized the circular landform in high-altitude aerial photographs in 1951. Gilmour and Tecumseh lakes made a curved mark inside it. After he brought the pattern to astronomers and geologists, field teams studied the site over ten seasons, drilling 12 holes and recovering more than 5,000 metres of core.

The original impact bowl has been heavily eroded and partly filled with sediment. Later, glacial ice removed much of that cover and gouged low areas that filled with water as the ice retreated about 11,000 years ago. Those depressions became Gilmour and Tecumseh lakes.