Off season fun - snowshoeing at Foret Ouareau

A tiny part of the hills and valleys of Foret Ouareau



In the offseason we quebecois look to the snowy wilds for our fun.

Outside of the cities and town there are provincial parks, national parks, and regional parks. We visited Foret Ouareau today for a 12 km snowshoe adventure.

We pulled in the accueil (reception) on the rt 125 north of Chertsey (Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci entrance) and paid the $5 each and started to hike, uphill! This was my kind of park!

This trail followed the sentier-national which is Quebec's trans-quebec hiking trail. It went up to and along the tops of a series of mountainy hills. Lots of hills and mountains in the distance. Very scenic, and perfect late winter powder and packed powder conditions.

There are three main entrances to this park, and this one is the easiest to get to and probably the most popular. There were classic and nordic skiing also.

A fine day out in the fresh air and sun, trying to give my buddy a crise-cardiaque, except all he got was a blister from his boot heel. This meant I had to give him my good snowshoes (raquettes) and I had to use his crappy snowshoes! Well it was a sacrifice worth making, because he stopped complaining about blister and instead kept saying he wanted to build a fire.

I explained that we no longer build fires as we hike along the trail! Leave no trace!


Chickadee ponders my lunch, back off bird!

We descended after to refuge Prudhomme after getting as far as the lac Braque lookout on the Massif trail, we did a little backtrack after the lookout to take the descent trail for the route back home.

The under-one set at the refuge.

Cycle Fun Montreal officially declare's today to be the best day so far this year.

Evidence: for the first time this year when I sat outside at this refuge, the sun actually felt WARM on my face.


lac Mysterieux? Sounds.. interesting!

This can only mean one thing:.get outside and Have Fun everyone!


Some of the best scenery in Quebec... and no condos in sight!

Here is a link to an excellent brochure on the parc.

There are other parks in this eastern-laurentian area officially known as MRC Matawinie, and is contained in the larger "Region" of Lanaudiere. Happily, in the hilly northern Lanaudiere, where the terrain is not ever flat! I have been exploring here for the past three years, and like it's geography a lot!