Camp Fortune QC – January 30, 2011 : Kids down The Chute

Patrick

Active member
After yesterday’s Slalom on Zoomer, kids today faced an intimidating GS course down The Chute. Camp Fortune managed to open The Chute 2 days prior to the race. The snow was apparently inconsistent. The focus of the snowmaking equipment was now on the steep Heggtveit. Kids were racing from the top of Canadian and then would drop left into The Chute. I remember when we moved to Ottawa, The Chute was a narrower trail, but it was widen a few years ago in order to conform to ski racing rules.

As I watched Steepmomo’s run at coach’s corner at the start of The Chute drop off, I noticed a couple of near misses, you couldn’t screw up on that turn and not be forward or you would land into the netting before the trees. The skier prior to Morgane almost lost it. Steepmomo passed that turn fine, but fell on the fall away turn into the compression. I saw her through the trees as I was skiing Canadian parallel to that run. She bounced back and continued to the bottom. My wife and younger daughter were happy that she was okay and how well she skied regardless of the fall. She didn’t lose much time. After her run, she went inside to eat her lunch with the rest of the family. After a huge delay in the Boys run, Steepmomo went back outside to see the Edelweiss/Descente Boys run. During the delay, she started climbing the hill all the way up at the bottom of The Chute.

The whole family were out of synch, wife and youngest were back out to go skiing towards the Valley. I eventually tried to join them, but never found them on the other side. The Valley is definitely a busier place. I took the Clifford Quad and noticed all the powder tracks on Alexander runs on the other side. I decided to ski on the trail that leads to the Chalet des érables which I was always curious about. Ended up in the Gatineau Park cross-country trail network and saw a few skiers wondering what I was going. Someone once told me that Camp Fortune started back there and eventually expanded toward the Valley and finally all the way to Skyline in the late 50s. Camp Fortune is one of the oldest ski areas in Canada and the Ottawa Ski Club is celebrating it’s 100th anniversary this year. Some of the oldest parts of Camp Fortune, be it the ski jumping facilities or the original trails no longer exist, but it’s health is still strong and is one of the most popular ski areas in the Ottawa area.

So after skiing outside the ski map, I eventually rejoined the ski area by pushing by the Alexander T-Bar lift which didn’t have any Ts on it. I guess all the tracks were made by the skinning Patrol. Back up Clifford and planned to get back to Skyline side. Fortune had both Pineault lifts running, so instead of waiting for the quad and took the slow triple. Probably one of the slower lifts I’ve taken in a while, but to be fair Pineault is the main beginner hill which was partially recycled as a snowpark. The Meech side was open, so I decided to take a run on that side as I’ve rarely ski there.

Conditions were pretty slick and needed some well tuned skis. Back to Skyline in time for the second run. A better run by Steepmomo that would go back inside the Skyline Lodge. Tara also had enough, so I did a run on Canadian to check out some of the Junior at Coach’s Corner. The wife was even more impressed with the course.

It’s been a busy couple of weekend for my newly racing daughter, 4 races in back-to-back weekends. Next week should be less hectic.

Originally posted with map and aerial images (and eventually a log) on Ski Mad World. I'm having some technical difficulties with my Suunto, so I'll edit the post once I can download the logs.
 
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