Mont Pembroke, Mont des Loupes, La Carouge Hut

March 11, 2023

It turned out last night was not crowded. The two guys belonging to the luggage arrived after skiing all the way from Village Grand Nature on AT gear, ate a frantic supper, and then immediately grabbed fancy camera gear and vacated to get photos of fabulous the sunset. After dark, they came back briefly and announced that they were spending the night outside to take photographs of the stars. We did not see them until the next morning when they came in the hut for breakfast, looking a little bit frosty. Click here for more information from this adventure photographer: Eric Deschamps

Today was the best skiing of the trip. We departed at 08:00 to another beautiful day. We skied down the loop trail and after about one kilometer came to some tracks of others who were skiing the slopes above. We followed their up track which took us to a small summit and then we set out making our own tracks to climb to the top of Mont Pembroke. The views up top were phenomenal. The ski back down back to the loop trail was devine.

Working our way up Mont Pembroke

Approaching the summit

Summit of Mont Pembroke

Descending down amongst the gargoyles

The rest of the trail was lovely today now that we could see where we were going. The lake descent was challenging due to steepness and trees, but a good amount of fun was had by all as we leap frogged past Guy and Catherine who were also skiing this route. After crossing the lake we were back on the machine trail, but only for a few hundred meters until we were back on a real ski trail again for another whole four kilometers! We climbed up a very steep section to a pass and then it was all downhill for the rest of the way. Some exciting pitches, but a hoot of a good time now that we were on ski tracked snow. The last couple of kilometers to the hut was back on the machine trail slog. We finished this just in time for lunch.

La Carouge hut

I am not sure what Paul is trying to do to the poor snowman here

Since the day was still young, we plotted a course on the map to the summit of Mont des Loupes. We departed behind the outhouse and following some other ski tracks for a bit until they went off in another direction. We bushwhacked through fairly open forest and crusty snow, working our way up a steep drainage and then turning south-west towards the summit on more gentle terrain. As we got higher the snow got better and we found ourselves in the maze of gargoyle trees again. Picking our way ever upward until about ninety minutes after departure, we were on top of the mountain with views down to the Saint Lawerence, over to Mount Logan, and all other directions as we skied around the broad summit plateau searching for the highest point.

Summit of Mont des Loupes

The descent back down was lots of fun though challenging. Well the fun was reservd for the first 250m. The final 100m of elevation was survival skiing in the crusty, icy snow on the steep slopes above the hut. It was probably one of the most relief filled moments to spy an outhouse in the woods, realizing we were safely off the mountain.

Tomorrow we are planning a bushwhack over Mont Jaques-Ferron to avoid as much machine trail as possible. After much map study, I have a theory that we can connect to another 3.2 kilometer trail segment that might not be wrecked by snow machines. If this is true, we might get some good skiing in before we hit the awful descent route back to civilization. Lets see how well theory plays out in practice.

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