Gatineau Park
Trails Skied: #24, #40, #1 (blue), Glide Wax: Swix LF6, Grip Wax: Start racing green
A beautiful early February day to do a classic excursion to visit an old friend - like the fire tower.
I took the usual route P12 => #40 => #24 => #1 => the fire tower and back. #40 and #24 have old tracksetting covered with feathers of new snow; #1 is newly trackset all the way to the fire tower. Both conditions were extraordinarily great - I'm not sure which I liked best. Why do I feel indulged? The grip was great, even on the steep climbs; the glide was reasonably fast.
I find Start Racing Green works exceptionally well on new, cold snow. I was able go parallel uphill where most skiers had to herringbone. It's supposed to be equivalent to Vauhti Teho.
The route out to the tower was as beautiful as ever.
The old #10 only had some old snowshoe tracks on it. Maybe we can paraphrase an old Pete Seeger song as "Where have all the real skiers gone".
I think I will spend the rest of today levitating on the memories this memorable ski.
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.
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).
