Taylor Lake Loop, Gatineau Park

Ahhh Friday at last, time for another x-c ski day in the GAT. Today was a little different though as I was on my own what with Mike driving his parents to Florida. Not a problem. My plan was to ski the Taylor Lake loop which he'd already tackled earlier in the month. But unlike Mike-the-big-chicken, I was going to do it the direction that would give me an exciting downhill ride on Trail 55.

The weather was perfect - blue skies and about -10°C or -24°C with the wind chill but that wasn't going to be a problem in the GAT woods.

After dropping my wife off at work I made my way up to P19, Lac Philippe. By 11am I had the boards slapped on my feet and was heading down the trail to the Renaud shelter for lunch.


Stopped at Renaud long enough to enjoy a toasted cheese sandwich on the woodstove and then headed off towards Taylor Lake. Life is good.

Somewhere along the way I stopped to snap a pic and ended up skiing alongside a woman. We were both skiing at about the same pace so I started up a conversation. Well it didn't take long before I got an invite to join her for lunch at the hut she and her friends were renting on Taylor Lake. Sweet.


As we skied up to the hut two more women joined us. Then as I was slapping my aluminum foil wrapped cheese sandwich on top of the woodstove the door opened and yet another couple of ladies came walking in from the cold. Yowzer. After some strange looks some introductions were made and I was offered a seat. Awesome. I think I had read about this in a Playboy magazine once.

Soon I was offered tea, coffee, pasta, chicken, shrimp, crackers and dip, white and red wine, Bailey's, and homemade cheese cake. Life just got better... or as one of my lovely hostesses put it, "You must have good Karma." Suddenly my cheese sandwich wasn't sounding so yummy anymore.


By 1:30 my belly was more than full and Bob had arrived with his sled to pick up the ladies' gear as they were packing it out and heading to a spa for the rest of the day. After helping loaded their gear on the sled and saying my good-byes, I was back on Trail 55 and heading for the "!" (as marked on my GAT ski map and as you can see below the map doesn't lie).




It was a crazy ride to the bottom with a couple of moguls and an "ah shit" or two but I'm proud to say I made it without incident. The trick is deciding just how much speed to allow yourself on the way down. And the red wine might have helped too.

After a couple more hills like that it was easy skiing. At the split I opted for Trail 51 and made it back to P19 just as the ladies where picking up their gear from Bob's sled. Waves and shouts all around.


Thanks again girls for the awesome lunch break at Taylor Lake. And yes I haven't forgotten, "What happens at Taylor Lake hut, stays at Taylor Lake hut."

Tripper Fotos slide show

Winterlude with the Twigman

This weekend was the last official Winterlude weekend for 2007 so we decided to check it out with our house guest extraodinaire, Uncle Twiggy.


First we strolled through the snow sculptures and admired the works created by each of the provincial teams. Then we checked out the voyageur and Native American displays.





After yesterday's awesome x-c ski in Gatineau, Twig was thinking that the weekend couldn't possibly get any more funner. Well he couldn't have been more wrong. His first run down the ice slide turned into a rocket launch as his new winter pants sent him screaming down the frozen shoot nearly bowling me over as I tried to capture the moment on video. Check it out...





Between blasting down the slides and petting dead beavers we met up with Zartimus and his family. This was almost as coincidental as yesterday's hook up with Mike in the middle of the Gatineau ski hills.

After the Quebec version of Winterlude we headed back over to Ottawa for some skating and beaver tails. Always a hit. And apparently we're not alone - take a look at this crowd.




Skating on the canal.





Another Winterlude come and gone...

Twig slaps on the boards after 20 years

This weekend we had a visit from an old high school buddy of mine. Day one we decided to tackle the x-c ski trails of Gatineau Park so we rented some skis for the day from Trailhead for $15 and headed off to P10.

We left a little late in order to give the sun a chance to warm things up. Forecast was about -23°C in the morning warming up to -9°C by the afternoon. Sun was shining when we rolled into the parking lot and we paid our fee and headed off down... I mean up the trail. From P10 it's about a 3.5km gradual climb up to Keogan chalet.



Hit the chalet just after lunch and warmed up some awesome turkey, cheese, and garlic sauce sandwiches on the woodstove.

The weather was warming up as predicted and we were feeling energized after the little rest and some food so we decided to ski another few kilometres past Shilly Shally to Huron hut. As we were leaving who should top the hill in front of us but my other x-c ski buddy Mike. Introductions were made and then Mike decided to postpone his lunch to join us on our ski to the next hut.



After another snack break at Huron we skied off to check out the view of the Ottawa river. Awesome.


Then the fun started as we made our way DOWN HILL back to the car. Check out some of the video...




PS: Due to some technical difficulty the awesome clip of the Twigman coming down this hill has been lost. Needless to say it was a hell of a ride that likely would have won us the $10,000 prize from America's Funniest Videos.

Good times.

Skiing down Lusk trail

Lusk Cabin

Monday morning Mike and I headed back to Gatineau Park, Quebec for another day of x-c skiing. Conditions where approaching perfect. Even though we haven't had much of a snow fall this year the trails were freshly groomed and in great ski condition. Combine that with blue skies and -10°C and you have what it takes to make a great winter day in the outdoors.





Lusk Cabin


View of Lac Lusk.



Life doesn't get much better than this.


Stay tuned... On the way out we shot some video which I'll post later.

Winter is fun

The weekend was another family x-c ski and toboggan extravaganza. I'm slowly working the family up to some bigger hills in order for them to get some practice going up and down them. So far so good. And everybody is still having a blast.





Tobogganing is always a hit. I do miss our old 4 man family tube though. I still remember screeching down the glare ice slope last year when POP we ripped a chunk out of it. Man that thing would fly.



Yep, that's the little one coming down backwards just off to the right. Ahhh good times.

Happy Birthday Mom!

My kids put this wonderful card together for their mother's birthday. I think all the markers are now dead but it was a small price to pay to surprise mom and make her the proudest mother ever.





PS: In case you're wondering I bought my wife (aka mom) another birthday card just from me. She loved it.

74th Whig Standard Bonspiel

Can you believe it? I got an invite to compete in another curling tournament with the same team as last year. This makes it Whig Standard Bonspiel #2 for me. They obviously didn't invite me back for my curling skills. Having said that, we did win one game keeping last year's streak alive. Yahooo!



The win came in our third match on the Friday night. The game was our usual 3 hour showdown ending at 12:30am. What a blast. Turned out we were playing against an old university buddy of mine that I hadn't seen in about 17 years. Slick aka Greg Miller. Unfortunately by winning that game we were bumped up into a higher caliber slot for the playoffs. Need I say we didn't win Saturday's match against the skip who put together this entire weekend event?

Again the question remains, will I get another invite in 2008? Hope so, it is a recipe for a fun filled weekend.

(sorry no pics... bachelor party rules apply here)

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.

Skis for everyone!

This weekend I bought both the kids used x-c skis from Tim's Sports on Wellington. Skis and boots came to about $50 each and then I scooped a deal on brand new poles from Bushtukah for only $5 a pair.

The next day we all headed back again with mom and scooped her an amazing deal from Bushtukah skis, boots, and bindings for only $153. And you thought my friend Urblock got a deal after reading his blog, didn't ya?

Sunday morning we all headed out to the nearest x-c ski trail to test out the kids' ability to handle long sharp pointed objects while balancing on two thin strips of wood. Well they did great. Mom was there walking beside us at the ready with the first aid kit (her new skis won't be ready until next week) but in the end she was only there to cheer us all on as we skied up and down the hills (0.2% grade).

Note to fellow skiers: With only a mere 5-10cms of snow on the ground the wipe outs can be a little painful. No hotdogging, try to stay upright.

L’Aquàrium de Barcelona

Some video and photos taken during a visit to Barcelona's Aquarium and Oceanarium. The glass tunnel with the sharks swimming overhead was way cool. And the looks I received when I pretended to "swim with the fishes" were amusing to say the least.



The Port Vell marina on the Mediterranean was fairly quiet today but then again it was December.

View from Park Güell in Barcelona

A December stroll in Park Güell, Barcelona, Spain. Video is not exactly high quality but you can still see how everything appears to be out of a children's fairy tale. Antoni Gaudí's use of bright colours and smooth curvy architecture results in a calming effect. If it wasn't for the lions and sea serpents you might believe you were in the middle of the best acid trip ever.

Coyote or wolf?

Ok blog readers, you get to decide. Is this a wolf or a coyote in the photo? Post your comments and we'll tally up the vote and make the call.



Photos were taken in the Ottawa region (near Bruce Pit).

I'll save my vote for last.

No Fouling

Whoever came up with the design for this sign definitely has a sense of humour. The immediate assault on the nostrils after seeing the steaming pile of dog poo is a testament to the artist's skill. Well done.




Photo taken outside the Kensington Palace gates.