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!

Spring ski to Champlain lookout

Went for a spring ski yesterday from P10 to Champlain lookout. Snow was "sticky" which helped a lot on the uphill part of the Fortune Parkway. It started out cloudy but the sun came out and made for a great day of spring xc skiing.

More pics

Pine Road ski/hike

I took advantage of a snowy day to "traverse" from P16 to P15. Bryan and his buddy Rick were hiking in from P15 and I decided to ski from P16. We met in the middle at Herridge cabin. The fire was stoked when we got inside and with a couple of logs added there was an inferno that quickly toasted our foil wrapped sandwiches. Toasted a little too much but who's complaining. Nothing like relaxing by a roaring fire in one of many cabins in Gatineau Park. We would have sent a pic of the refreshments and the fire to those who "could not make it due to work" but the cell phone tower was out of range. After a hearty lunch, we hiked back to P15. Somehow, I managed to go mostly uphill on both the ski AND the hike.

I hope this is the first of many traverse outings in 2014. There are several great ones I have in mind:

• AMR to Elk Lake via Pinnacle Ridge
• Route 73 to Elk Lake via Great Slide and Macomb Slide
• Zealand to Lincoln Woods via the Bonds.

More pics here