Take your pick: adrenaline packed or slow and contemplative?
Published on Mar 9, 2020
Note: This content was produced in winter 2020. We encourage you to practice outdoor activities with your immediate family bubble only. Always check trail conditions before leaving home.
Located only a few kilometres from downtown Granby, the Club de golf Les Cèdres offers a delightful network of impeccably groomed trails.
By Simon Diotte
The owner of the Club de golf Les Cèdres, Serge Nadeau, has a true passion for cross-country skiing. In 2008, when he decided to open his greens to Jackrabbit’s disciples, he went all out. He invested a good sum of money to purchase a top-of-the-line trail groomer with a “built-in snow renewing system.”
“Because I wanted to offer a quality product, I had no other choice. We don’t get a lot of snow in the area and the temperature variations make it difficult to maintain our trails,” he explains. Thanks to this powerful machine, this outdoor sports centre, with its 17 km of classic skiing and 14 km for skate skiing trails, can deal with all kinds of weather changes. “Even after a downpour, we’re able to perform miracles!” says Serge Nadeau.
Indeed, this is what I found when I came to experience the centre after a couple of spring-like days in February, which were followed by a cold spell. When I arrived, the groomer was hard at work—with Serge Nadeau at its helm!—and the trails were simply magnificent.
Because we’re on a golf course, there aren’t any steep slopes, but rather wide-open trails, offering a more aerobic approach to our cross-country ski outing. On week days, the centre’s clientele, most of them retirees, race along the trails as though they’re marathon-calibre athletes! I had to really work hard not to suffer the humiliation of being passed by this skier, who must have been twice my age!
All the trails are designed as loops. The combination of trails 5 and 6 will take you deep inside the domain’s forest. I especially liked the hemlock grove I discovered on trail 6, and the different peekaboo views of Mount Shefford when I took trails 3 and 5. It’s a great venue for a quick getaway from Montreal or to initiate yourself to the sport of cross-country skiing. In fact, the centre offers 60-minute classes onsite.
Besides skiing, the Club de golf Les Cèdres also welcomes snowshoeing and fat bike enthusiasts on their network of trails. Plus, they have a rental service for all the necessary equipment. Furthermore, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can enjoy skijoring, canicross or kick sledding because dogs are allowed at the centre on these days (on a leash and accompanied by a human, of course!)
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