3 GATINEAU PARK SKI TRAILS to take you to cabins in the woods

3 GATINEAU PARK SKI TRAILS to take you to cabins in the woods

By Michael McGoldrick

Many trails in Gatineau Park can be challenging for people who are new to cross-country skiing. And this applies to some of what the National Capital Commission calls “easy” trails. The Park is in the Gatineau Hills, and hills are exactly what you’ll find on most trails. The added effort and skill required for hill skiing may surprise even experienced cross-country skiers who are used to relatively flat terrain.

But start with easier trails and work your way up. Within a season or two you should soon feel right at home on anything Gatineau Park has to offer.

The maps on my website (xcskiing.ca) use a colour scheme for trail difficulty based on the NCC’s cross-country ski trail map. The easiest are green, the more difficult blue, and the most difficult red. Consider this code only a guideline; some of the more challenging green trails can be almost as difficult as some blue trails.

Trail number signs also indicate this classification. Easy trails have signs with numbers in green circles. The more difficult blue trails have signs with the number in a blue square. Red trails have signs with numbers in a black diamond.

P10 TO KEOGAN AND HURON

This route uses Fortune Parkway (green) or Trail 1 (green). Both are shared trails for skate and classic cross-country skiing. It’s about seven kilometres to Keogan and back from the P10 parking lot. To Huron and back is about 10 kilometres. This parking lot is a good starting point for many trails, so expect it to fill up quickly on weekend afternoons.

The first kilometre involves non-stop hill climbing but on a gradual slope, so the hills can be managed with your skis still in the tracks. The climbing stops as you approach Lac Fortune. From this point onwards, you’ll find large open areas on the left of the trail, with the right side at the bottom of an embankment.

As you continue towards Keogan, you’ll

notice signposts for connecting trails, but many are challenging back-country trails. After a while you’ll reach Trail 1 and possibly the busiest ski intersection of the park’s entire network. A large sign points you in the direction of Keogan Cabin (about 100 metres further in), which holds about a dozen picnic tables inside.

An option is to turn right and continue on Trail 1 for another 1.5 kilometres to Huron Cabin (very similar to Keogan). Along the way you’ll pass Shilly Shally cabin, which has to be the smallest in the park. Inside, there’s room only for a small sitting area and one picnic table.

Although Trail 1 is fairly easy, it’s narrower than the Fortune Parkway and relatively level on the way to Huron – up until Shilly Shally. After that, there is one large hill where a knowledge of herringbone climbing will come in handy.

Fortune Parkway Trail is good for the skier new to the park. It gives a taste of hill climbing, but under manageable conditions, and brings skiers into the heart of this part of the park with several cabins as destinations. And the return trip to P10 is mostly downhill.

P16 TO HERRIDGE

Trail 50 is also a shared trail for skate and classic cross-country skiing. Total distance to Herridge and back is about 10 kilometres.

If Trail 1 is the backbone of the network in the southeastern park, then the same could be said for Trail 50 in the northwest section. A popular stretch of Trail 50 is the segment between P16 and the Herridge cabin in a nice wooded area.

There’s a lot of climbing right at the beginning. Once you get by these hills, this trail generally consists of a lot of little slopes except for a fairly large hill about one kilometre before the cabin. Although the

hills can be a little tiring, they are not so steep and scary to descend, despite a few interesting twists and turns.

Herridge is a two-storey log cabin with more than a dozen picnic tables.

Going back to the parking lot involves more downhill than uphill runs, so the return to P16 goes by faster than you think.

P12 TO WESTERN

This outing uses Trails 40, 33 and 2. Trail 40 is restricted to classic cross-country skiing, while 33 and 2 are shared. A return trip is close to 10 kilometres. The drive to P12 has a long stretch along a narrow road on the south shore of Meech Lake.

This entire route to the cabin at Western is blue; expect a challenge. When going towards the cabin, most of Trails 40 and 33 work their way up a ridge to a plateau. It can sometimes seem like you are climbing hill after hill, steep and twisty.

These trails go through a nice wooded area that still lets in lots of sunlight, and includes bright open areas. A nearby brook and ravine make this trail quite scenic.

The cabin at Western offers one of the best views of any the shelters in the park from the top of the escarpment overlooking the Ottawa Valley and the Ottawa River. You can see the view through the cabin windows or from a bench outside. Western is built with large logs, but it’s not very big inside (fewer than 10 picnic tables), so everyone has a view of the fire through the wood stove’s glass door.

So if you’re new to Ottawa, or just haven’t been out on the trails for a while, be sure to taste their many delights this winter. A sunny Sunday afternoon offers nothing better!

> Get your Gatineau Park ski pass here

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