Parc national des Îles-de-Boucherville

I now have a hiking squad that gets together every Saturday to explore and a Sunday Funday Crew for Sundays. Add this to Spanish Class two nights a week, tutoring English two nights a week and Search and Rescue training once a week and I stay quite busy...

This Saturday was supposed to be quite cold but we still wanted to venture out. We decided to go to Iles de Boucherville as it is a SEPAQ parc and we now all have annual passes. It was quite close to the city and I'm sure it's popular in the summer. They had a lot of kayaks and canoes by the Info Centre and it's obviously on water being an island.

I didn't take too many photos as the day ended up being just as cold as they said. It was easily the coldest day we've been out on the trail. We saw a number of deer, but well off trail in the trees.

After doing one trail we got back to the visitor centre and hung out by the fire for a bit. I do love that having an outdoor fire by the trail is so common here in the winter. After warming up we decided to do another loop, the trail was super flat so we had made really great time. I can’t say I was really impressed with the trail, I’ll have to check it out again in the summer as I feel it’s better for that season.

On Sunday, I met up with some friends at a new parc, this one is pretty much right downtown and where a lot of events will happen in the summer. I was looking forward to scoping it out a bit.

We had planned on skiing since it was first come first serve for renting them. We had someone in line a bit before they opened, with only about 20 people in front of him. Unfortunately, by the time we got up there they were all out. They really must not have very many pairs.

We decided to rent skates instead since they had a rink there as well. The rink was super tiny and full so we went to the skating trail. It was really just a small circle but it was way less crowded. Although we figured out fast it was because of the quality of the ice. I've never skated on anything so bumpy and uneven. It was super fun though and the first time I've made it out skating this winter.

I have been carrying a crazy carpet around in my trunk in case any one ever wants to go sledding. After skating we decided to make use of it since there was a hill right there. It was mostly kids but after we started going down, a lot of other adults did too. Sledding is probably my favourite winter activity and I hope to convince them to go again.