If you park at P7 at Kingsmere and ski up to trail #1, the Ridge Road, you have to climb trail #30 or possibly #31 up what is still sometimes called “Booth Hill.”
It’s called Booth Hill because to your left as you leave the P7 parking lot there once stood the country estate of J. R. Booth, Ottawa’s lumber baron.
If this hill holds any intimidation for you you’ll be happy to hear that it was referred to as “the graveyard of skiers” by the people who originated skiing in Gatineau Park.
In 1922 one man, George Audette went so far as to create another ski trail just to avoid it.
At the time two popular cross country ski destinations were Kingsmere and Camp Fortune so the trails in between were well used.
The winter after George Audette had cut the new trail, officials from the Ottawa Ski Club went out on their skis to inspect it. It seems that they weren’t too sure it was a whole lot safer than the skiers graveyard it was supposed to avoid.
Here’s how their expedition was reported by Club President Charles Edmond Mortureux (known on the slopes as “Mort”).
“A special Investigating Committee was appointed to inquire into the conditions of the new trail. It was followed by a Salvage Committee that picked up what they could of the investigators. The remains of the Committee held a joint indignation meeting at the bottom of the last ravine and, not being able to obliterate the trail, decided to give it such a name as would warn the skiers of the danger they were running. None of the names suggested however—such as “Suicide Trail,” “Nightmare Trail,” “Devil’s Own Trail,” “Slaughterhouse Trail,” “Trail-of-the-man-who-lost-all-his-friends”—seemed to quite fit the occasion, and as a fitting punishment for devising such a diabolical trail, the Committee decided that it should bear the name of its creator.”
The Ottawa Ski Club may not have been able to obliterate the trail but the National Capital Commission has gone some way to do so. Though none of its parts are marked George’s Trail anymore you can still ski little bits of this historic route that struck terror into the hearts of those of almost a century ago.
The original trail had one end starting at Lac Kingsmere and this portion is gone, but if you turn off trail #30 and join trail #8 you can pick up what was once George’s Trail after the first descent when you begin to climb up with the Champlain Parkway to your left.
We lose George’s Trail again somewhere during this climb, George’s Trail having once turned right to cross Ridge Road and descend into the Camp Fortune valley along what is now known as trail #4.
Before being called trail #4 this section had already obliterated George’s name though because on maps from the 1950s it is called “Fortune Lane.”
Trail #4 ends near a first aid kiosk because that would be near where the Committee held its “joint indignation meeting.”
There exists an older and more fulsome account of the history of George’s trail as written by Charles Edmond Mortureux. I see copies of it here and there around the internet so here it is as a PDF http://j.mp/7xiPIK
If you’re really eager to find a bit more of Georges trail it still can be found off of trail 8. Halfway up the climb on trail 8, as it parallels the Gatineau Parkway, you can still find some remnants of the fencing the NCC put up to close off Georges trail. It’s much easier to find in the fall when the leaves are gone as its set back a bit from trail 8. A short bushwhack up the remnants of the trail gets you onto trail 17. From there the links to Fortune lane are harder to spot but its easy to imagine a short connector across the ponds to Ridge road and from there on to Camp Fortune.