Gatineau Park

Trails Skied: Fortune Pkwy, Champlain Pkwy, #1, #1 (green) (#2 - #24), Glide Wax: Swix CH4 over graphite, Grip Wax: n/a

In the past two days I have experienced the some of the best skating conditions in my somewhat prolonged skiing career. Beautiful finely ground granular that the skating skis just seem float in.

Yesterday I went from Asticou to #15 via the GP and back one hour after the parkway had just been re-ground - euphoria.

Today I went from P10 => FP => CP => #1 => Blanchette and back. From P10 to the water tank on #24 conditions were hard and fast but quite doable. Just before the water tank I met the tracksetter coming back from the fire tower - from there to Blanchette and back to the Champlain lookout I was floating in fast flour - it was enough to make an old guy think that he was still a great skater. From the lookout back to P10 the new tracksetting was able to scratch the surface making the rest of my run still good. Everywhere the classic tracks were in excellent shape: on the parkways they were hard and fast; on #1 the tracks were softer. Everywhere the classic tracks were granular enough to eat wax. #24, #2, #3, & #1B looked to be in good shape but hard. All the backcountry trails were not doable.

The problem with this re-ground snow is that overnight the snow seems to re-freeze turning the previous day’s ski tracks into hard, unforgiving skier-traps. This is probably why the snow that gave me such joy yesterday created such misery for Rick.

For me it was great to have new tracksetting two days in a row. For Rick I can only apologize for those hardened tracks that I left behind to ruin his day.













Gatineau park map


Gatineau Park is ski paradise! The network of ski trails offer machine groomed skate skiing and classic skiing as well as little groomed backcountry trails. Multiple access points allow skiers to access a variety of terrain and scenery. The NCC offers season or daily pay rates.

Gatineau park map

For suggestions on where to ski, excellent trail descriptions, photos and maps checkout Michael McGoldrick`s website about recreational xc-skiing in Canada`s National Capital Region (with an emphasis on the Gatineau Park).

Gatineau park map