Parc National De la Gaspesie (Google Map)

[hikingfish]

Hi All,
I hope this works... I spent a bit of time looking at my Parc National de la Gaspesie map this weekend (would love to do a camping ski traverse some day) and I've put everything down in a Public Google Map...I thought I'd share in case it could be of use to anyone else!

Google Map of Parc National de la Gaspesie

Cheers!

Fish

PS: There a lot of markers on that map, so it might slow down your computer a bit.

 

[spider solo]

Pretty clever map ..I think I got the hang of using it.
Very nice Parc, my wife and I did the traverse several years ago in the summer which we enjoyed immensely. I believe it was the 1st year that they incorporated the SIA into their trail system.

Out of your many pin points I picked out the small "town" of Cap-Sieze, as we drive through it frequently every year.
It is pronunced the same as our English word "capsize" and our friends up there find it quite humorous when we tell them it means to tip a boat over upside down...it's just one of those word things that makes everybody smile for no particular reason...a bit of Fringlish we call it...just for fun.

Hope you get a chance to spend a bunch of time in the Parc in any season !

 

[hikingfish]

Hehe, do you know that it actually means Cap #16?

Fish

 

[spider solo]

Yup, that's why it brings smiles...other than sounding the same the meanings are so unrelated...
(our friend works as a chef at the Gite Albert... yummy food ...but better at her house...opps, I didn' say that...)

 

[hikingfish]

Wow, that's really cool.

Must be an amazing job. I went for a winter ski trip in the parc a couple of years back with some friends: 5 days hut to hut...my friends decided to live it up at the end of the trip and spend a night at the Gite (it was Dec 31st too). Must of been quite tasty, especially after eating dehydrated foods for the past 5 days.

Fish

 

[outdoorls]

Parc National De la Gaspesie

Hi,
This is my first time posting.
Thank you for creating the Gaspesie map. We are planning a trip up that way from August 4th to the 9th. Hike around, camp, maybe do a little canoeing. I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for where to go. Any good backcountry camp sites? General suggestions for making plans to go up there. I noticed we would need a permit for the hiking/ camping, any suggestions on whether we should order them on-line or pick them up once we get there?
Thanks,
outdoorls

 

[hikingfish]

Hi,
This is my first time posting.
Thank you for creating the Gaspesie map. We are planning a trip up that way from August 4th to the 9th. Hike around, camp, maybe do a little canoeing. I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for where to go. Any good backcountry camp sites? General suggestions for making plans to go up there. I noticed we would need a permit for the hiking/ camping, any suggestions on whether we should order them on-line or pick them up once we get there?
Thanks,
outdoorls

Hi oudoorls,
Nice to see someone actually using the map! Truthfully, it bogs down google map quite a bit, I'm not so sure it's that usable anymore, but...with a bit of patience...it can be used!

I've never been canoeing there, but you might want to browse around this site if you haven't already: http://www.sepaq.com/pq/gas/en/activiteete.html

For the permits, if you need to go rent a canoe, might as well get it while you're at the Acceuil Center.

Fish

 

[yardsale]

Hey Fish,
I would give my eye teeth to do a camping traverse in that area as there is some fantastic glade sking all over the place up there. Trouble is, the Parc authority, I believe, prohibits winter camping anywhere in the Parc except at the designated camping areas over by Mt. Albert. What's worse, they insist that you use their cabins only in a fashion which forces you to go hut to hut with little time to explore on your own. By the way "exploring on your own" is also prohibited. Parc regs. require that you stay on the marked trails except for a few open bowls just to the South of Mt. Logan. If you have info to the contrary I would love to hear about it!

 

[outdoorls]

Park de la gaspesie- Recommend??

Hi Fish and Yardsale,
The skiing is exactly what got me interested in heading to Gaspesie, except I haven't ever made it up there. Have you guys been there in the summer? Is it buggy, are there many people on the trails? I live on Cape Cod and it is a long drive. I've heard positives and negatives about hiking in the park and am trying to get a feel for what other people think and experiences they have had. It doesn't look like there are too many trails. Is it the same with hiking as skiing- stay on the trails- hike hut to hut? Do you have to stay in a hut or can you pitch a tent?
Thanks for the help.
Outdoorls

 

[yardsale]

I haven't been there in the summer so can't say. Have you been to the website? Sepaq.com

 

[hikingfish]

Hey Fish,
I would give my eye teeth to do a camping traverse in that area as there is some fantastic glade sking all over the place up there. Trouble is, the Parc authority, I believe, prohibits winter camping anywhere in the Parc except at the designated camping areas over by Mt. Albert. What's worse, they insist that you use their cabins only in a fashion which forces you to go hut to hut with little time to explore on your own. By the way "exploring on your own" is also prohibited. Parc regs. require that you stay on the marked trails except for a few open bowls just to the South of Mt. Logan. If you have info to the contrary I would love to hear about it!

Well, my plan (very tentatively), would be to go from Mont St-Pierre, ski down into the park (I believe there is a logging road(?, plowed(??)) or something of the sort) which would take me to the nord-east part of the park...then make my way to the Mont Albert center (being the center point between the east and west parts of the park). From there, I believe there are no connecting trails that join the east part of the park with the west part, so I'd take road 299 all the way near the refuge "La Grande Fosse" or "Le Petit Saut" and then continue inward into the park towards Mt Logan. Once I reach Logan, I have no way how to get back to civilization though. My current set of Garmin maps don't allow me to see the logging road in that area. Either have someone pick us up or continue to ski towards cap-chat. My father in law is supposed to get the latest set of Quebec maps for his Garmin. I'll check if we can see the Gaspesie roads on his version...after that, I could start planning a bit more, maybe even set a date! I'd hate to do it alone, but I'm not sure if a lot of people would be interested...I guess a group of 4 or so would be ideal.

To answer your question: The only place you're supposed to be able to winter camp is at Camping du Mt Albert. I'd probably try to get a special approval for it. I almost had to do something similar (we wanted to do the Mt Logan 5 day trip on snowshoes and we were asked to talk to the supervisor at the park so that he could explain to us what our days would be like...he was right, it was a lot of work! But we were allowed to do it on snowshoes). If that wouldn't work...I'd basically pay for a refuge, but wouldn't use them: I'd set up close by and camp there...It also affords me a bit more security, should something go wrong.

This winter will help a lot to prepare for this trip: I have plenty of winter camping and skiing planned. Both areas in which I need more experience. I've skied all the way to Mt Logan and back (with 40lbs backpack), but I'm still not even close to being an intermediate skier. I've also done winter camping only once before (in horrible conditions though: +7C with rain during the day and it went down to -25C overnight and stayed that cold the next morning). We did stay warm though.

Sorry for the long post, I get carried away when it comes to this trip sometimes

Fish

 

[hikingfish]

Hi Fish and Yardsale,
The skiing is exactly what got me interested in heading to Gaspesie, except I haven't ever made it up there. Have you guys been there in the summer? Is it buggy, are there many people on the trails? I live on Cape Cod and it is a long drive. I've heard positives and negatives about hiking in the park and am trying to get a feel for what other people think and experiences they have had. It doesn't look like there are too many trails. Is it the same with hiking as skiing- stay on the trails- hike hut to hut? Do you have to stay in a hut or can you pitch a tent?
Thanks for the help.
Outdoorls

If you don't make it to Mt Jacques-Cartier, it's not such a big deal. I did it, it was ok...but nothing spectacular other than it has the highest toilettes in Qc Mt Albert (which I haven't done) is said to be a much nicer hike. At this time of the year, there shouldn't be that many bugs. And it should be getting rather cold at night (if you go camping, keep that in mind).

When I went, I stayed at Jacques-Cartier campground. It's a standard SEPAQ campground. Be careful on the roads in the park, there's lots of critters moving about.

Fish

 

[yardsale]

Fish,
What do you mean long reply? What better thing to do than plan ski trips on a stuffy July evening! The first leg of your trip is a bear--about 20 k from the Jac Cartier campsites (closed in winter) at the border accross the McGerrigle plateau to Madeline MInes ahd then out, plus whatever distance you have to travel from the trail head on rt2 to the parc boundry. Also, that traverse can be nasty in a whiteout. Very easy to get turned around and come up at the top ofag 1200 sheer cliffs as you travel West. You'd have to put in at least one bivy somewhere up there. How do you go about this special permission you speak of?
yardsale

 

[outdoorls]

Parc National De la Gaspesie

Thank you for the information. I have checked out the website, quite a bit. Time is running out, I better start planning the trip, if I go.
I think you should continue your thoughts about the ski trip for the winter, I would definitely be up to checking it out.

-outdoorls

 

[hikingfish]

Fish,
What do you mean long reply? What better thing to do than plan ski trips on a stuffy July evening! The first leg of your trip is a bear--about 20 k from the Jac Cartier campsites (closed in winter) at the border accross the McGerrigle plateau to Madeline MInes ahd then out, plus whatever distance you have to travel from the trail head on rt2 to the parc boundry. Also, that traverse can be nasty in a whiteout. Very easy to get turned around and come up at the top ofag 1200 sheer cliffs as you travel West. You'd have to put in at least one bivy somewhere up there. How do you go about this special permission you speak of?
yardsale

Going from Mont Saint-Pierre to the camping du Mont Jacques-Cartier: La Grive, gives me approx. 27km. I've made it follow the Riviere de Mont Saint Pierre, since I don't have route 2 displayed in my GPS software. The profile of the route I drew (although keep in mind it goes through the forest at this point...it's not the actual road) is approx +200m in the first 12.5km, and +300m more over the next 8km. Even if it's on an unplowed road, I'm not sure it could be done in a day. Perhaps 1 extra night of camping would be needed...Unfortunately, right now, I'm not at the point where I could say how much km's I could do skiing in different conditions.

I've been told by many people that going over Mt Jacques-Cartier (which I believe my route would follow) would probably be one of those "GPS only" moments if there's the slightess wind (which is the case in 300+ days out of a year). The good thing about camping through the route would be that you'd have all your stuff with you should you decide a traverse is not wise...Last time I was doing the Mt Logan route, the same had happened and group that was at the Nyctale/Chouette refuge almost had to come back on GPS only.

Today seems to be a slow day at work...I might try to draw out a tentative route for the traverse in MapSource.

For the special permission, we had to call a supervisor at the Chic-Chocs park. Mind you, they just wanted to make sure we understood that the km's per day were high and the route wasn't thought out to be for snowshoeing and that our days would be long and hard (which they were). They couldn't really stop off from registering, but they wanted to make sure that we understood those 14km days going uphill would be a killing on snowshoes and we had to have headlamps and stuff because the days weren't long (we went in late december: And we almost spent the night out on that day by the way).

Fish

 

[hikingfish]

Here's the route that I was thinking of using...

Notes to self:
1) There's a bypass for Mt Jacques-Cartier, in case the weather is really cruddy.
2) There should be a parked car at Mont Albert parking lot (bail #1)
3) There should be a parked car at "la Bousole" if it's opened in winter (it's on road 299, 15 km's (?) west of Mont Albert parking lot), bail #2
4) There should probably be a car at St-Octave-de-l'Avenir, bail #3
5) Road to st-octave hasn't been marked on the map yet

Finally, notice that the journey stops at Mt Logan: No, I don't plan to settle there for the next couple of years I don't know how to get back to civilisation from there...I know there are some summer trails that head towards Mt Fortin (a bit more west), but we'd probably want to find a way to get back to Cap-Chat (23km nord of Mt Logan in a direct line), where a final car would need to be (total of 5 cars is probably a bit too much, the parking at la bousole could be dropped).

So far, it would look like a 150km (approx) trip. At a conversative rate of 10km per day on skis (some days we could do longer, such as the 20+km's on Noroit trail or the 10-15km's we'd have to do on the 299 or the 27km's on Route 2 from Mt Saint-Pierre to Camping Jacques cartier (although we're going uphill...), but I remember going at 1-2km/h on certain spots...plus, since we'd be camping, we'd need to consider camp setup/takedown times as well), we'd be looking at a min of 2 weeks skiing time.

Here's a picture of what the route would look like:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dpoisson/Temp/photo#5091906111373046978

Here's a link to the GPX file...I hope it works, I'm going through google documents (right-click and select to save as "Traverse.gpx"): http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d5wjx24_2dq4vtp

Fish

 

[yardsale]

Hey Fish,

I can respond to most of your questions.
1. It is easy to bypass the summit of Jacque Cartier. You are traveling on a 10' snowpack well above the secondary growth so you can go anywhere you want.
2. I won't thin La Bosole is open in the winter.

3. Descent from Logan is a challenge. We usually retrace our steps back to St. Octave where an a graded road descends off the escarpment. There is no such road leading North off Logan and descent promises to be steep, windblown, and icy, out of the question if you have sleds. If you have gear on your back and want to speak with someone who has ascended that route contact these folks. www.vertigo-aventures.com Note the lack of a d in adventures. Francois used to guide skiers onto Logan from the north.

 

[hikingfish]

Hey Fish,

I can respond to most of your questions.
1. It is easy to bypass the summit of Jacque Cartier. You are traveling on a 10' snowpack well above the secondary growth so you can go anywhere you want.
2. I won't thin La Bosole is open in the winter.

3. Descent from Logan is a challenge. We usually retrace our steps back to St. Octave where an a graded road descends off the escarpment. There is no such road leading North off Logan and descent promises to be steep, windblown, and icy, out of the question if you have sleds. If you have gear on your back and want to speak with someone who has ascended that route contact these folks. www.vertigo-aventures.com Note the lack of a d in adventures. Francois used to guide skiers onto Logan from the north.

Yay! I won't have to think about this all weekend. Thanks for the fast reply yardsale...although, now I might have to think about it some more since it becomes more and more feasible that this could be done. I might actually call the guy at Gaspesie park and check with him if this would be 100% not feasible...

I'm wondering how many people would actually be up for something like this, provided I'd announce it WAY beforehand (I'm thinking of doing it either at the end of this winter or the next after). There's a lot of time off involved and it's a pretty committing trip.

I think it's a great thing that there's a bypass for the summit of Mt JC, although it would be too bad not go pass through there on a traverse of the Chic-Chocs!

Honestly, like I said the Bousole parking lot wouldn't be such a great thing anyways, since the parking du Mt Albert is too close by.

I've sent Francois an email. Hopefully he'll be able to provide me with some insight. I've basically told him about the traverse, and how I was stuck on Mt Logan for now: I needed a way to get down from Mt Logan from the North and then go towards Cap-Chat. Maybe there are logging roads close by or snowmobile trails or something...

I've tried doing Mt Logan twice already. Both times I've failed to make it to the top (we made it to the Nyctale/Chouette and took a rest day instead of going for the summit). Still, it's been of one of the best times of my outdoor life! Especially if you go around Christmas time, you're basically all alone out there.

Fish

 

[outdoorls]

Winter Ski Trip

Hey Fish,
This sounds like something incredible that I wouldn't want to miss. I know I would need to train for a tour this long. Thinking about skiing, gets me excited for the snow.
Outdoorls

 

[hikingfish]

Hey Fish,
This sounds like something incredible that I wouldn't want to miss. I know I would need to train for a tour this long. Thinking about skiing, gets me excited for the snow.
Outdoorls

As someone pointed out in a PM, it is a very committed trip. One that you must be sure you (and I do include myself in that "you") are ready for. I still have lots of training to do: Winter Camping practice, skiing practice, etc.

I guess for now, it's a way of putting different things I want to be competent at (skiing and winter camping for example) into one, fairly decent expedition! It also gives me a goal to work towards as far as training and planning my outdoor outings!

I've spoken to the Francois person yardsales referred to in a previous post. He provided me with some good information. There is apparently a way to ski down the north face of Mt Logan, then join up with a snowmobile trail that will go to St-Octave-de-l'Avenir. I've ordered the snowmobiles trail maps from the Gaspesie tourist office...I should be getting them soon. I'll post the entire route (in GPX format) once it's completed if you're interested!

Fish

EDIT: I'm also looking for the GPS coordinates for St-Octave-de-L'avenir if anyone has them!