#xcski
The morning #XCski report from #Gatineau Park. Not good.
February 10th, 2024 at 08:30 am
Update: All back country trails are closed. With the spring like conditions we're experiencing, the freeze/thaw cycle favors a rather hard and icy base when the mercury is below freezing, then soft and wet as soon as the temperature rises and the sun warms up the trails in the afternoon. Trails with a south-facing slope have reduced snow cover and are prone to icing more quickly. Trails are sometimes covered with debris, water or ice. The ground may also be exposed in places. Please note that conditions may change before the next update, so adjust your wax accordingly.
With 27 cm (10 inches) of fresh snow from the recent storm, I headed to to #Gatineau #Park this morning.
I was #skiing on my own, since my #ski partner, @Kathryn Barr is still out of town until Monday night. I don't usually ski the main part of the park on the weekend, because it can get too busy and it it was. There were traffic jams to get into the park and at one stop sign. I started at parking lot P9, which holds 100 cars and by 0900 was half full. When I git back at 1130 hrs it was almost full up.
I skied about 15 km up the Eardley Escarpment on the Fortune Parkway, to the Champlain Parkway and then onto the Champlain Lookout. The skies were clear and the visibility unlimited so the view down the escarpment was good. From there I came back on Trail 1, which was not great, as it had not been properly groomed. From the stone bridge I headed back down the escarpment, which is a fairly quick run.
The pictures turned out pretty well. Many of the shots show the trees covered in a layer of ice from the recent freezing rain.
#Skiing today with @Kathryn Barr in #Gatineau #Park. This was our fourth ski and our last for a while, as we have a week-long melt coming up, with temps as high as +9°C coming. Today we skied 14 km from P6 at the Mackenzie King Estate to the intersection of the Champlain and Lac Fortune Parkways and back. It is quite a climb on the way there, but much faster back!
So it looks like this will be really and for truly our last ski of the winter, as we have a serious thaw arriving tomorrow and +14°C forecast by midweek. Today was #ski number 21 in #Gatineau Park on Trails 50 and 54 to Lusk Cabin and back for 8.4 km. The temperature was -5°C with a windchill of -13.
With the season coming to an end, and this being a Sunday, the Trail 50 start point at P20 was busy, but everyone headed in different directions and Trail 54 wasn't very busy.
It looks like this will be our last ski of this #winter, as we have a big storm and melt coming soon to #Ottawa. So today was #ski number 19 in #Gatineau Park. This was a new route we had not done before: P20 and trails 50, 55, 56 and 56B to the lookout there, a total of 12 km round trip. The bench shown was at the lookout. The temperature was -4°C with a windchill of -10.
With the clock ticking on a big thaw forecast for Sunday, we did our 2022 #ski number 18 in #Gatineau Park, today. This was our second run on Trail 55, 9 km around the loop from P20. With really good conditions and fresh snow, Kathryn easily skied the big hill on this trail. The temperature was -11°C with a windchill of -21, which is cold for this date.
We did our 2022 #ski number 17 in #Gatineau Park, today. This was our third run on Trail 54, 8.4 km round trip from P20 to Lusk Cabin again. This is probably Kathryn's favourite trip as it has some lovely hills. The temperature was -5°C with a windchill of -8.
We only have a few days left to ski as it looks like winter is ending soon here!
#Ski number 11 in #Gatineau Park today was 13 km from P10 to Champlain Lookout on the Fortune and Champlain Parkways and back on Trail 1. It worked out well on blue special wax, our first time this year not skiing on just blue wax. The temperature was -4°C with a windchill of -8, so quite a bit warmer than our recent skis.
The view of the Eardley Escarpment from the Champlain Lookout is always spectacular.
#Ski number ten today in #Gatineau Park, was @Kathryn Barr's choice, as she wanted to tackle the big hill at the Wattsford Lookout, on Blue 30 from P7. There was fresh snow on the ground and she did really well. This was 10 km from P7 to the Fortune Parkway and back on Trails 30 and 1. The temperature was -11°C with a windchill of -19.
This was #ski number seven of the season in #Gatineau Park today. We covered 8 km from P19 to Renaud Cabin on Trails 50, 51 and 55, in temperatures of -10°C with a windchill of -15.
The birds are blue jays Cyanocitta cristata.
