Most of us were surprised to wake up on Sunday morning and be greeted by a blanket of snow on the ground. But it was only a thin layer and it served to add a cheerful wintery atmosphere to our hike at Mont St Bruno. The temp was about -2 C under overcast skies.
There were 24 of us who gathered at the chalet at 9:45 am. Two people opted to go running on the trails before meeting up with us later. After the group photo, we set out at 10:03 am to do a big counter-clockwise loop of the park. We took trail 1 to Lac du Moulin and then joined trail 5 for 1.5 km. Then we took trail 1 again, past Lac à la Tortue and then around Lac des Bouleaux to the only hut with bathrooms on the trail. After a pit stop there for a few minutes, we took trail 3 to Lac Seigneurial, before switching back to trail 1.
The hike had been promised to be about 2.5 hours long. As we got close to the parking lot, I realized that we were on track to arrive back after only 2 hours. Far be it from me to cheat two dozen eager hikers from their promised allotment of outdoor exercise. So we extended the hike by looping around trail 9. This trail, which is a skate-skiing trail when the snow arrives, was cut into soft grassy fields and it was actually more work to walk on than the dirt and gravel paths of the other trails. We arrived back at the chalet at 12:30 pm. We hiked 11 km in 2 hr 27 min. A nice, easy hike that everyone was able to enjoy!