Mont Joseph-Fortin

March 6, 2023

After two days of driving to get up to the Gaspe Penninsula, today we actually got to go skiing! We drove south from Saint Anne des Monts to the Gaspesie Park and went into the visitor center to obtain permits for the week and inquire about conditions. One of our two options that we had planned to ski today was closed due to a caribou herd in the area, so that made the choice of what we were doing today fairly straight forward; a ski ascent of Mont Richardson and Mont Joseph-Fortin. Since Mont Blanche-Lamontagne was off limits, the park staff recommended skiing up to Lac Cascapedia tomorrow.

There was about fifteen centimeters of fresh snowfall overnight, so the ski conditions as we set out from the trailhead was fantastic, though a light drizzle did not promise for the best atmospheric conditions. Nevertheless we skied up a summer road for about two kilometers and then turned onto a trail which took us up the mountain. The first bit was fairly gentle but it got steeper as we went. The others all put skins on but I found my wax to be biting quite nicely so remained on naked skis all the way up. I got quite far ahead while braking trail, so after skiing up a particularly nice section, I spun around and descended a while in the lovely snow, pulling hero turns until I met Katharina and then stopped to regroup with the others. As we started off again, another fellow came up behind us, which helped break the trail the reamainder of the way up to the shoulder of Joseph-Fortin.

Breaking trail up the road from the parking area.

A lot of snow at the trailhead kiosk

Climbing into the alpine zone

Here we discovered the outhouse, pretty much buried to the roof in the deep snowpack. The other guy had turned across the sub-alpine towards the summit from here, so we decided to take advantage of first tracks and turned towards Mont Richardson. A fantastic hundred meter descent brought us down to the col where we crossed a lovely meadow. During this time it had stopped raining and the sun even came out for a brief moment, tantalizing us with a view of this somewhat daunting peak. We started climbing which became challenging due to massive snow drifts which blocked the way. Switching to skins made this easier, but as we climbed higher though, the conditions became icy and the wind became fierce. Furthermore, the clouds rolled in putting us in an invisible world of white. After losing the trail in the blowing fog and sleet, we pulled the pin on the ascent about 100m below the summit. Some exciting skiing down the ice and snow drifts in the whiteout put us back in the meadow where condtions were calmer making this a good time to sit down for lunch. Another solo skier came along while we were taking our break, but turned back from whence he came after hearing from us about the conditions higher on the mountain.

If you need to use the loo, you need to rappel first

Mont Richardson makes an appearance from the shoulder of Joseph-Fortin

After lunch we skied back up Mont Joseph-Fortin, this time continuing the extra kilometer across the summit plateau to the actual summit. The weather even cleared up a little bit, so we did get a few views. The descent was fast but challenging in parts where the trail was steep and narrow. Back at the road we found a freshly groomed track, though there was still plenty of snow to pull some turns on the steeper parts as we made our way back to the parking area. In just over an hour since we departed the summit of Joseph-Fortin, we were back at the car ending a fantastic seven hour ski, netting us one peak and almost a second.

Summit of Mont Joseph-Fortin

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