The SkiFreaks at Cap Saint Jacques

The second attempt to get a group of 2plankers out and about succeeded while the first attempt failed. That's 1 outta 2 so far. No such a great average, we'll have to work on that. Originally, the intention was to go carve some S on the slopes of Owl's Head (so far never skied by yours truly), but with the mercury looking to hover around -16°C with the windchill making exposed flesh feel like -25°C (not to mention those-o-so prone to freezing toes), the plan was revised to a X-Country outing to Cap St-Jacques (the day was also revised to Sunday from Saturday).

Well! What a nice 10 or so km was had by all! Personally, my lack of cardiovascular conditioning conspired to keep me nice and steamy hot, which resulted, as usual, in my toque being covered with a frost of congealed sweat...Yum! No salt required with any meal, all I need to do......um, never mind. Say! Let's look at some pictures

Say, that's a nice one: in order of appearance, Arnaud, Johanne, and myself with Robbie, as ever, behind the lens. The trail conditions were fair: any sections exposed to the winds has an slight tendency to be a little bare, making the folks with the lovingly restored $10 at a garage sale almost irreplaceable wooden skis cringe only a little. Those of us who forgot their ski boots and had to rent even though they remembered their skis were laughing (well once they'd skied over those sections anyway). Elsewhere the trails were quite nice, particularly in the more wooded sections; an extra 10 to 20 cm would not be amiss, however.

Ski de fond at CSJ is getting a wee bit expensive: parking is now $7 and the equipment rental was $20 with an additional $20 deposit (they only take cash - much to the dismay of the person who forgot their boots and had to borrow some cash). On the bright side, we started out at about 11:20am and there was almost no one about. Upon our return to the Centre d' Accueil at around 1pm, there were oodles of people both leaving and arriving, with the fortuitous result that I was able to sell my parking stub for $4 to someone just arriving. I parked close to the ticket machine for a reason....

I only crashed once, which is really not bad for a first time out. Really I wouldn't have crashed at all if it weren't for the obstacle I was trying to avoid when I crossed my tips. Okay, so Robbie's scarf isn't really an obstacle, but if I'd run over it I would have gone flying anyway, so avoidance seemed the best policy. Too bad that after falling down I couldn't get up again. That's what happens when you're wearing 30 year old ski knickerbockers whose waist band is so tight that you can barely sit down (they were my Mom's. I'm attached to them, OK?). At least I'm no longer wearing the red cotton windbreaker with the contrasting knitted liner in a 1950's snowflake pattern (Also my Mom's. I had to give up wearing it when I split the back open - eh! 50 year old cotton...whaddaya expect?).

Here's another pic of Johanne showing great form:

And here for your amusement is a picture of my toquesicle: Stay posted for next week's excursion report (that's if I've actually survived this week's - the hot shower and Ben Gay have not yet fully worn off, so my damage report is incomplete at best). Next week: Alpine! I promise!