Carlington Hill - February 19, 2017

With spring like conditions and lots of snow you would have thought I'd be out on the ski hills this weekend. Well I wanted to go to Mont Chilly but got stuck in town. This was kinda a good thing after looking at the webcams at Camp fortune and Mont Ste-Marie, it was crazy busy up there.  Instead I checked out Carlington Hill and discovered Alpine skiing, back country skiing and powder filled glades in downtown Ottawa!   The Carlington Hill is a water reservoir but it was also a mini ski hill with a t-bar from 1965-1990. Some t-bar pillars and pulleys can be seen in the photos. The hill used to be called Anne Heggtviet Hill for a while.  Anyway I put on my snow shoe skis (short wide skis with telemark bindings) and climbed through the woods on the right side of the hill now used mostly for tobogganers.  The skis have a built in skin which gives you traction going up hill.  The spring like snow was great for climbing and I could climb straight up the hill after each decent.  After a bunch of runs I went back into the woods and caught some powder in the trees.  Backcountry skiing in downtown Ottawa!