Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019

Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019
On the Archduke's Path in Mallorca

Thursday 2 February 2017

Wednesday 1 February 2017 – Another Outing from P7, and some Snowshoe Running at Night

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Susan left early for a week in Kelowna, Ken went to work, and Helen fancied a rest. So Sue and I enjoyed the short ski enumerated below.

The weather was superb, and whilst it hadn’t benefited from any recent grooming, trail 3 – The Burma Road – was a lovely route to ski on today. The final descent was fast, and with a large group of people blocking my planned exit, a hasty readjustment failed to halt my progress into the woods. First ‘fall’ of the trip.

That was after herring boning up some hills like the one shown below.

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Lunch was taken at Keogan Cabin, home of icicles and (today only, I hope) toothache.

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For the record: P7 (Kingsmere) > #30 > #1 > Huron Cabin (elevenses) > #1 > #3 > Fortune Parkway > Keogan Cabin (lunch) > #1 > #14 > #4 > #1 > #30 > P7 = 17.8 km, 325 metres ascent, taking 3 hours 28 mins (2.36 moving time).

There’s a group of about thirty crazy Ottawa folk who go out snowshoe running on Wednesday nights. I wonder how many of them prepare by way of a meal of beans on toast? At least two. I might have known Lester would be there as well. Here he is pictured with Ken wearing some lightweight running snowshoes. Luckily a spare pair was available for me, so my full size shoes could be left in the car.

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It was actually great fun and very good exercise, albeit we only covered about 5 km in the hour of activity. The somewhat convoluted route is shown below. These were mostly not snowshoe trails until we created them tonight in the undulating woodland near the Visitor Centre in Chelsea.

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You might be able to find the Visitor Centre on the winter trails map shown below (click on it to enlarge), which for anyone interested is available on the Gatineau Park website.

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2 comments:

AlanR said...

I like the sound of those snow shoes. They must be good to take the strain of running. What's the popular make? MSR?

Phreerunner said...

Atlas - see more comments on the next posting. They certainly do take the strain out of running through deep snow, which would be impossible without them. Albeit 'sensible' people may prefer to walk!