Taking good advice

 

On a recent sunny day I parked at P13 with an eye to hiking the Wolf Trail. As I got out of my car a guy on skis appeared in the lot having skied down from somewhere off-trail. He indicated he was heading across Meech lake to complete a loop. Since I happened to have my skis and boots in the car I asked myself, how often can you short cut across Meech Lake? Decision made! After crossing the lake, I ran into a couple of local photo-bloggers on their way out from sunning themselves at Healey cabin. Another great idea. Nothing quite like sunning one's self in the spring sun. On the ski out the crust on the lake was softer but thankfully the ice held and I made it safe and sound back to my car. A great day to be out!

Pine Road - Old School

I took the afternoon off Friday and headed for one of my favorite trails for a short ski, P16 and the Pine Road trail. Based on ongoing construction, highway 5 will be extended past this spot sometime next summer so it will be interesting to see how they provide an access to P16. I headed out "old-school" today which is to say that in my rush to assemble some gear this morning I omitted my ski pants so I had on a pair of jeans instead. Normally that would be a big mistake but not on a warm spring day with temps at or above 0.

The snow surface was sticky and soon clumped on the bottom of my waxless skis. This is not a bad thing when going up the long hill that starts the trail but terrible for gliding once on the flats. Since it was not to be a good day for a ski, I headed for a favorite bench on Meech lake and sat for a while enjoying the view and the sounds of spring time. While there is a ton of snow, I think spring is coming quickly and the best ski days are behind us. That said, it was a real nice day to be sitting at a bench beside a frozen lake instead of an ergonomic chair at the office.

Meech Lake shortcut

What a beautiful sunday to be out skiing. I chose to ski out of the O'Brien parking lot (P11) as I had not skied from there yet this winter. The weather today was a far cry from a day several years ago when Bryan and I left P11 in a semi-blizzard and windchill values hovering at about -40. My destination today was either Herridge or Healey cabins. Trail 36 is a real rollercoaster of a trail, probably more up and down for its 7k distance than any other trail in the park. It touches parts of Meech lake about three times before it joins up with trail 50. So you work hard climbing each hill and then have a blast going down the other side.

Just before it hits trail 50, there is a short side trail that brings you to a bench that looks out across Meech Lake towards P13. This is a great spot for a break. Just as I arrived at the bench, the previous occupants were packing up and heading out. Perfect! I decided to stay there for lunch instead of heading to a cabin. While there was no stove to cook up my sandwich, the view and solitude more than made up the difference. As I sat there enjoying my cheese and crackers (side note: these make a great ski snack as I learned from a wise friend) I noticed some tracks heading out across the lake.

I figured it was a nice day to ski on the lake and decided to see if I could shortcut my return by skiing across the lake and rejoining trail 36 near the head of the lake. The snow was only ankle deep and it is great crossing a lake as you get views you otherwise wouldn't get. I passed many nicely suitated cottages and as I approached the shore I heard some skiers. Great idea. It turned out I hadn't made much of a shortcut though as I rejoined the trail at the earliest spot. I had needed to gone out and around a much further point on the shore but I only realised that after seeing my map at home.

McKinstry cabin

With a tropical weather system approaching (temps near 10C for most of next week) Bryan and I took the day off work to use the snow while it is still here. Our target was McKinstry cabin from P12 along Meech lake with a round trip distance of about 19k. We got great conditions with about 5cm of overnight snow and temps of about -5C. The trail from P12 gets right down to business and heads straight up steeply and doesn't really let up until you are at Ridge road some 2-3 kilometres away. From there it was a series of fun hills and some nice flats to get to McKinstry cabin. It took us about 2.5 hours to get there and that included many stops to take pictures.

The route back takes a lot less time as the trail is mostly downhill, especially from the junction with Ridge road and the trail from Meech Lake. This is often the case skiing in Gatineau Park: work hard to climb the hills on the way out and cruise back down hill on the return. We saw surpisingly quite a lot of other skiers this day, perhaps they saw the same weather forecasts that we did. I really enjoyed the day and would return to McKinstry for sure.