Beaver Tails Nordic Ski Club

Not a promising start to the day we thought as we drove through a quite heavy shower on our way to Rigaud, still onward we went with confidence all would be well. Sadly Christine D in another car did not share our confidence and turned back at Ste Anne’s, too bad Christine.
Arriving at the Sucrerie we quickly assembled a group of 16 other people who had nothing better to do than walk in what was likely to be a showery day. Actually the group was 17 with the very late arrival of Ron M, a man who walks alone. For the weather buffs, it was not raining although the temperature was hovering around zero ,with a slight breeze, brass monkey weather indeed.
We split into two groups, Al L with two others opted to walk along the L’Escapade trails for about an hour out and an hour back. The rest decided to go for the Cross led by our intrepid guide Christine BM. Christine tried in vain to get us to do warm up exercises before the walk but to no avail as most of the group were still in their pajamas having only just dragged themselves out of bed. So away we went.
The nice thing about having our local guide with us, apart from not getting lost is that she knows every blade of grass , minor tree trunk or rock on the trail, often on first name terms. So we were entertained by Christine’s tales of the forest all day. Following a brief stop at the beaver lake to take a photo of the Beaver Tails looking for beavers we ploughed on to the cross, patching up a few blisters on the route. Not for us the delights of sitting and enjoying the view, it was bloody cold as we caught the wind so down to the potato fields we fled. We nearly lost Tom V at this stage as he went happily walking past our trail whilst talking on his cell phone. The referee immediately issued Tom with a red card and he was banned from the next two hikes of the club, plus three demerit points. Any more demerit points and he could lose his phone.
The return journey that Christine chose to take was a very rocky path, with obscure markers carefully hidden so that only the sharp eyed could see them, or were so old they were classified as historical artifacts, no I am not talking about Bob L. It was probably at this point we realised the drops of water falling on us wasn’t rain but ice on the trees melting as the day warmed up, we even had some sun shine.
Soon we came out on the L’Escapade trails and a short walk to the parking lot at Le Sucrerie,
So that was it, 9kms, good walk and time for Timmies.