Saturday 28 January 2017 – An Outing from P5

Another ‘warm’ day with snow flurries and temperatures just below freezing. Overcast again – it’s very very unusual for us to have such warm and overcast weather on this regular winter trip; usually we get bright sunny days with colder temperatures.

Today Ken went on a long ski in preparation for the CSM (Canadian Ski Marathon) whilst the rest of us started from P5 (Penguin).

Helen did a traditional Parkway Circuit. The rest of us started that way but after a few km left the Parkway in favour of the Burma Road (trail 3). It was in excellent condition and most enjoyable. After that we flew down the Khyber Pass for lunch at Keogan Cabin, pictured above. The stove was roaring and the cabin was busy with a mixture of weekend skiers and snow shoers.

Penguin Hill can be fearsome in icy conditions, but with the new snow from the flurries was very easy and enjoyable today. At the bottom of the hill, Sue and Susan took a wrong turn (pretty difficult, but they managed it) and I returned to P5, arriving within a couple of minutes of Helen, who had skied the Parkway Loop without a cabin stop. So she was happy to scoff her lunch in the car while we waited for Sue and Susan to reorientate themselves.

For the record: P5 (Penguin) > Gatineau Parkway > #32 > Fortune Parkway > #3 > #1 > Keogan Cabin > #1 > Penguin Hill > Gatineau Parkway> P5 = 20.4 km, 387 metres ascent, taking 3 hours 21 mins (2.42 moving time)

Then we went to a ‘Pot Luck’ canoe club skating party. To please Alan, I hope that by the time this is posted a foodie picture of something we took along, by way of ‘Pot Luck’, may appear below.