x-c ski in the GAT

It appears as if the snow is here to stay and I finally managed to find a day to head up to Gatineau Park for a ski.

Mike arrived bright and early Monday morning and we were off. We hit the P16 parking lot after a quick side trip to check out the covered bridge and then circled a couple of times before finding the perfect parking spot. Ok, actually we did a couple of donuts in the completely empty lot to celebrate the start of what we knew would be another great GAT ski day.

After a quick trip to the go-hut we headed off down, or rather up, the trail from P16 in the direction of Herridge Chalet. As per usual Mike climbed straight up the hills with his waxless skis while I left behind a nice herring bone pattern in the fresh snow. Bastard.

The trails and the weather were perfect - sunny and about -10 with an overnight dusting of snow to cover the rocks.



After a few ups and downs we finally found ourselves at Herridge. The maintenance man was just leaving on his snowmobile to groom some more trails. But not before shoveling some refreshingly nice smelling chemicals into the outhouses to cover up the stank from those yuppie weekend skiers. Yuppie crap really stinks, something to do with the faggy spandex they insist on wearing while skate skiing through the forest.

We then scooped up a nearby geocache (GCPZ48) and headed in for some grub.

Inside the cabin, the woodstove was roaring and we slapped our tinfoil wrapped sandwiches on top to warm up. It was a rare moment of solitude as we had the entire cabin to ourselves. On the weekends this place is normally a packed sweat lodge with the only available seat being in the upper level where the steam from everybody's sweaty socks and sweaters floats up creating a sauna-like effect.

After lunch we decided to just ski back to the parking lot rather than continue on. I didn't want to injure myself before my upcoming annual Kingston curling weekend. Ahhhh, but that's next week's blog.

Cheers blog readers.

Mike skiing down the hill to P16.

First person view of the ski down to P16.