Charlevoix Traverse - Day 3

February 23, 2015 - 10 km

Today was another day with the temperature off the scale. To make things that much more interesting, a 40 km/h wind made things cold enough to be in the danger zone. Fortunately the sun was out. A fun little trail took us up through a pass, where we then made a long gentle descent down to the main snow mobile route. This was some rough annoying skiing and very windy as it was open terrain. Fortunately this was only for one kilometer and then we were back on ski trail, making some rolling ascents and descents. At the five kilometer mark we started to climb. It was not too steep, so most of us did it on wax, however a couple people switched to climbing skins. At some point some yahoo on a skidoo had decided to take this trail and had made a complete mess of it, as the narrow trail was not suitable at all for a snow machine. We skied over lots of broken trees and massive holes where the machine had gotten stuck or rolled, which made for some unpleasant travel. Fortunately we crossed a snowmobile trail and then were back on a nice ski track again. We now climbed, climbed, and climbed some more, but it appeared that we were on an old logging road so the angle of incline was quite comfortable. The group was getting quite strung out, so I skied back twice, once for Katja, and a second time for Andy. It was too bloody cold to simply stop and wait, and not the type of conditions that anyone should be skiing alone in. We finally reached the summit and fully regrouped. The trail for the last two kilometers was a switchbacky, narrow track down the mountain which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Ivan hurt his leg a bit after a fall, and to add insult to injury, broke not just one, but both of his pole baskets. I stopped to help him get back up and we switched out his poles for the spare set. We then carefully descended, Ivan side stepping down the hills and myself waiting and then skiing each pitch with questionable grace. Finally we made it down, and a short fairly level jaunt down a snow machine track brought us to the hut. We arrived at noon so had lots of time for a hot lunch, repairs of Ivan's poles and a sewing adventure after Katja accidently touched her down jacket against the stove pipe, which melted the fabric and sent a giant poof of feathers into the air. Marc and Andy went out for an afternoon ski, but the rest of us did not want to go out in the brutal conditions if we did not have to.

Tearing out of the hut on a fridgid morning.

Thanks to some bozo on a snow-mobile, we had about a kilometer of this destroyed trail to negotiate.

Finishing the descent. Final push to the hut.

Chalet La Chouette.

Just a little bit cold today.

[Home] [Prev] [Next]