It wasn't until I was snowshoeing with C and the girls last winter at Lac Simon, they in their modern aluminum shoes and me in my traditional ones, that I realized I was now at a disadvantage. While they could stride up and down the hills with ease(well, L's legs are quite short so her ease was relative) I was struggling to dig my toes in on the uphill runs and tried to parallel on the downhill ones. This year I thought it time to come into the modern era and happily agreed when C offered to buy me some new snowshoes for Christmas.
Today, sporting our thermal socks and underwear, C and I ventured to G
atineau Park to christen my new snowshoes. It was great weather for snowshoeing. The temperature was hovering just below zero-degrees Celsius, there was little wind, and skies were overcast. We pulled into P19 at Lac Philippe, put some water bottles in our backpack, and strapped ourselves into our shoes. Before we left I had done a quick search on snowshoeing in Gatineau Park, and one blogger had recommended this particular trail as a picturesque and challenging one. Here I am as we set out on trail #74.(We laugh at ourselves. When we venture out into the wilderness, we don't do it half-assed. One day I'll write on our first canoe-camping trip with our girls. For now, I'll just say that we bit off just about as much as we could chew. Anymore than what we had planned would have resulted in a full-scale rebellion on the part of G & L.)
Our intention was to do the trail 74 to 73 loop that would take us back to the parking lot and our car. The mid-way point seemed to be the Renaud shelter, about 3 1/2 km (2 miles) from the starting point.
C is not one to set out at a leisurely pace. We didn't walk the trail, we attacked it! Up hills, down hills, over streams, shedding hats, mitts and sweaters as we went. The wildlife was no where to be seen, although there were plenty of squirrel and fox trails all along the packed trail. I thought that I had heard the trilling of birds but found it was just my asthma kicking in.
Fortunately, C doesn't want me to expire in the middle of the woods so I was able to stop and take a breather (literally) from time to time. These were, truthfully, some of my favourite moments. Each was an opportunity to take a look around and enjoy the barren beauty of this part of the world in Winter.
C would have to remind me how long it took us to get to the Renaud shelter. The trail is really well marked so I wasn't ever worried that we'd gone off course (the trail was also firm-packed snow so unless 300 people had gone off-trail we weren't likely to get lost.)
We did, finally, make it to the Renaud shelter, which was where our path would swing towards Lac Philippe and, hopefully, the less rigorous part of our trek. To prove we had made it at least that far, C took a photo of the sign post. From here, the sign says it's 300 metres to the Philippe shelter. When we got to the Philippe shelter, we were surprised to learn how far we'd actually travelled! (See the photo below.)
Somewhere between the Renaud and Philippe shelters, the skies cleared and the sun lit up the trees and snow-covered hills around us.We stopped at the Philippe shelter picnic area and I tightened up my boot laces as we watched a family settle into the cabin and mused about taking our own overnight trip into the Park this winter. G & L wouldn't be up to the the trek we had just taken to this point, but if the remaining portion of the trail was reasonable, we could certainly set out in the morning, set an easy-going pace to the shelter (stopping for lunch along the way) and spend the night in a shelter in the woods. It sounds glorious to me!
We set out again on what remained of trail #74 and found it to be a much gentler trail than the first section. Just a couple hundred metres beyond the Philippe shelter is a campsite, and there in the middle of the open space was a blue and yellow dome tent. C thought maybe that would be fun too, but I quickly vetoed that option. I'd much sooner build a quinzee and sleep in that then pitch a tent in a field in winter and leave ourselves exposed to the elements.
The trail took us to Lac Philippe's Parent Beach, and I thought we were close to finished. It turns out that I was very wrong. (In the summer, Parent Beach is one of my favourite places.) We were now on trail 73, which followed the shore of the lake to its most northerly point, and then swung left for just over a kilometre. I'm not going to lie, at this point I was tired and dragging my snowshoes rather than lifting them. The trail was hard-packed, so taking off my snowshoes and walking in my boots was a viable option.
Trudging along, we found the open road that would lead us to the parking lot, and from there to home. We set out as darkness was falling, minds clear, muscles sore, and looking forward to the next time we get to strap on our shoes.
