Gatineau Park

Trails Skied: #50, #51, #52, #53, Glide Wax: Swix LF6, Grip Wax: Start Green and Swix Blue (V30) over Vauhti tar

OK it was a day of "REAL" snow after a long period of old hard-pack. It was the day to revisit the Wakefield triangle counter-clockwise - the best way - the downhill way.
P17 => #53 => #51 => P19 => #50 => Renaud => #50 => #52 => #53 => P17

The tracks were a delight - soft, fast, with lots of grip - my wax choice functioned as well as I could have hoped for. It was only when I had to leave the sanctuary of the tracks that I got into trouble. The semi-compacted snow hors trace was so soft that it recorded the technique of every skier that had passed that way: those that had herring-boned up hill left a number of slices that made the hill look like a staircase; those that had snowplowed down left parallel luge-runs. I had no choice other than to conform: when my wax no longer held me in a climb in the tracks I had no choice but to wallow in a herringbone in the loose snow churned by those who had passed before; on the downhills, which I had so looked forward to, I conformed and snowplowed. It\'s possible that I no longer know how to handle real snow. Regardless, it was a wonderful day - and I\'m prepared, tomorrow, to adapt to real snow; the sun and temperature was as perfect as possible. I expect the tracksetting tonight will harden the trails and make them more manageable.

On #50 and #55 the skating tracks looked quite soft and seemed to be a lot of effort.

#55 classic had not been trackset. Reliable sources who skied in from P11 told me that #36 was in wonderful shape. It was only on #52 that I had to adapt to the soft hors trace snow - 50, 51, and 53 were a delight. #54 green was trackset.

Tomorrow I expect to revisit that area of the park and revel in soft snow classic - I'm just not sure, yet, where.













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