Even though it’s been weeks since the last snow trails 21 and 20 and 18 and 9 and unofficial old trail 13 (1983 map) across the beaver ponds were in great shape. No Demsis here. A couple tricky spots in some places but nothing dangerous and far more enjoyable than the groomed trails.
GuideGatineau
Gatineau Park Cross Country Ski Trail Reports is a companion site to GuideGatineau the site for people who love Gatineau Park.Contribute Trail Reports
The GuideGatineau Ski Trail Report is open for you to add to.
You can even post on-the-trail reports from your iPhone or BlackBerry.
To do so email GuideGatineau@gmail.com to say you want to submit trail reports and we’ll set you up.Please be patient, we might be out skiing ourselves.
XC Ottawa has also set up an excellent trail reporting web-app and plan to allow other skiers to contribute. Their app extends beyond Gatineau Park. XC Ottawa is probably the second most important trail reporting resource in the region; their reports are qualitative while the NCC's are more quantitative.
The NCC is the most important trail reporting resource if only because they have the "brand" to pull in web visits. The volume is serious for them, representing the second or third most frequently visited part of their website. They are in the midst of a web redesign process and are also planning to incorporate an interactive component so that skiers can contribute.
Meta
Do you have a pdf or other e-version of the 1983 map that you could share? I’m intrigued by the #13 trail.
Their are some good stories about the history of skiing in the park on Mcgoldrick’s site
http://mcgoldrick.ca/xc-skiing/index.html
and I think I got his story from guidegatineau
http://www.bytown.net/murphyshillskiing.htm
and I got 3 old maps from Craig Story’s site but can’t find the page with the maps now. Perhaps Charles can help.
The page that Robert is referring to is here
http://www.xcottawa.ca/articles.php?id=1219
you have to scroll down.
I think I’ll make some inquiries and find out what the legal status is for making maps like this public. Some people have more, but they may be subject to copyright problems if they post them on the internet. For all I know there may be other reasons why they can’t be made public.