02 Feb, 2011
Winter wonderland
Posted by andrea tomkins in: - Ottawa for kids|Easy ways to make kids happy|Multimedia experiments|Ottawa
We went cross-country skiing last weekend. As I mentioned, the day was picture perfect. The girls are still learning (and I’m rather iffy myself) so we chose what appeared to be a very easy trail in the Stony Swamp area of Ottawa. It was a great choice. It was perfect in every way… an easy 3km circle along a mostly flat trail through the woods.
Sidebar: The only problem was the jogger who ran ON the groomed ski trail. Even I know that’s a no no. This damages the trail for the skiers and makes it harder to ski. If you’re walking along a ski trail, walk beside it, not on top. Thank youuuu!
If you’re wondering where this wonderful trail is located, it’s listed as #27 on the NCC trail map. There’s a 2MB PDF map here. To access this trail you need to park at lot #11 and cross West Hunt Club road. That’s where the trail begins.
I even took a quick video! And I also tried my hand at a live ski cam to give you an idea of how amazing this trail is. (The video is laughable, really. And please forgive my breathlessness… which ventures dangerously close to double rainbows. :)
(I wanted to try the video capabilities of the Nikon D90. In a nutshell, it worked!)
Anyway, everything was so still and beautiful. It just took my breath away.
Some trails in the Stony Swamp area are populated by roving tribes of Black-Capped Chickadees that have learned to feed out of our hands. (Which is pretty awesome.) Those chickadees don’t live along trail #27. We went to Jack Pine trail for that.
There are a few other wintry pics from this day over here.
