Mont Jacques-Ferron

March 12, 2023

Yet another beautiful day for our final journey on this tour. If nothing else, we certainly had pretty spectacular weather when it counted on this trip. We said goodbye to Gye and Catherine who were also heading home today, then skied across the lake to start directly climbing Mont Jacques-Ferron. We immedietly found a skin track which pretty much followed the exact line I had mapped out to the summit, so this made travel fairly easy, even though the climb was fairly steep. About thirty meters of elevation below the top the tracks abruptly ended, so from this point on we had to pick our way through the tree blobs and snow drifts. Just after an hour after leaving the hut, we were on the summit, looking down to the big river and over to the various other peaks we had climbed on the trip.

Skinning up Mont Jacques-Ferron

Another summit, another bluebird day

The way down took three times as long as the climb. It started off steep, icy, but at in an open forest where we could at least plan efficient lines to drop elevation. At one point as I was finishing up a sweeping traverse, I brushed a tree which decided to release a blob of snow, its fifty kilo mass hip checking me flat on my side. This blob then landed on top of my legs, pinning me in this position with my upper body facing downhill on the slope in a very awkward position. I was not hurt, in fact I was laughing at the predicament, but somewhat stuck now. I could not push it off as I could not budge under the weight. I started poking with my pole, but the blob was a fairly solid consolidated chunk of frozen water, each strike maybe only shedding a few grams. I called for help, but the others were still picking their way down the slope in a slower and perhaps in a much safer fashion than I had come down. With enough struggling though, I managed to exricate my ski encumbered legs by pushing downwards into the snowpack below and then finally spinning around so I could stand up again. The others arrived, not quite understanding the spectacle I just went through. We skied on.

As we got lower on the mountain, the forest got dense and the terrain very rough. At one point we encountered a small set of cliffs and almost had to back track, until after a lot of studying, decided that a careful downclimb on skis could be managed. Fortunately the slope relaxed after this, but manouvering in the thick trees was difficult. Finally we popped out on the trail and I never thought I would be so happy to see the tracks of a snow mobile.

Downclimbing the "cliff". It sure felt a lot steeper than the photo seems to indicate.

We only missed our target trail by about one hundred meters, so after a short coast and a snack break, we were skiing on an actual ski-only trail again. This made a further tricky descent, mostly because of the well skied out trail in somewhat icy conditions. With fresh powder, this section would have been devine. At least there were no ATV ruts this time! A couple more kilometers of easy skiing brought us back to the main machine trail, where we climbed to the top of the final pass and had a proper lunch.

Lovely lake skiing

Top of the pass... about to begin the descent of doom

The descent from here was horrible down the snowmobile track switchbacking into the St. Lawrence valley. This was followed by a ten kilometer slog of mostly flat, but with a surprisingly long climb on cruddy, slushy, rutted snow. Purple wax gave way to the dreaded red as we made our way along here, all of us falling into our own natural pace and spreading out along the trail. Occasional ski tracks along the side would make the going a little smoother, until a machine swerve would destroy them. Finally we arrive back at the skidoo resort called the "Nature Center". Thoughts were had of going into the bar for a beer to celebrate the completion of the journey, but with so many snow machines around, we decided to just pack up and go. The final eight hour day finishes the trip to the Chic Chocs, where we spent the rest of this day, and most of the next driving home.

Slogging back along the machine trail on a blistering hot day. At least the scenery is nice!

Arrival back at Village Grand Nature completes the tour

The End

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