Gatineau Park

Trails Skied: Fortune Pkwy, Champlain Pkwy, #1, Glide Wax: Swix LF10 with rilling, Grip Wax: n/a

It keeps on going but conditions are getting thin and inconsistent but, nevertheless, skiable. Just being out there is the best part. My route was:
P10 > FP > CP > #1 > #2 bench at #2 > #1 > Huron > CP > FP > P10.
The Fortune Pkwy can be skied without taking the skis off but there are narrow detours around the bare spots. The Champlain Pkwy is the same as far as Huron - after that it's completely bare. #1 is fairly good from the lookout. A friend went as far as the Wolf ridge and said it was good - he also said there tracks going farther toward McKinstry. Ridge has complete coverage with a number of narrow detours around bare spots. The sun is enlarging the bare spots considerably.

When I went up in the AM I was fighting grey ice and frozen granular; on the way back(around 1:30 PM) it was soft, fast, manageable corn snow. Towards the end of the day there will probably be running water. There will probably be skiable conditions tomorrow but until things warm up conditions will probably be difficult - particularly on the Fortune hill.

March 16 I posted a report in which I cautioned that there was probably only 6 - 7 weeks of skiing left. Substantiating reasons could be:

there's this old guy who when he sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of skiing

there's this old guy who counts the number of snow fleas in a square-meter sample area and applies that number to a logarithmic graph to get an astoundingly accurate estimate of the end of skiing.

The real reason was that I had skied February conditions that day and, in spite of the date, in my mind I was still back in February and added 6-7 weeks to the end of February. However, tomorrow will be five weeks after the 16 March !













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