La Traversée du Parc Orford is one of the most notorious route in the Eastern Townships of Québec. It links the beautiful Ruisseau-des-Chênes trail to the rugged and technical Sentier des Crêtes trail. It's one of the main section of the Sentiers de L'Estrie trail, a kind of extension of the Vermont Long Trail north of the US border.This route include one the most technical and challenging continuous stretch of mountainous trail in southern Québec. It's a go to place for runners when comes the time to work on technical skills, preparing for a race or just the pure enjoyment of some gnarly terrain. Some sections are similar to the trails you can find in the White Mts. Presidential Traverse. Like the Valley Way to Mt.Madison or the old Crawford path leading to Mt.Washington. The route is used for the 5 Peaks race. This course is known as the slowest 25k/50k in Québec for a reason.
The route start at the Ruisseau-des-Chênes trail head, right at the aluminum bridge. It ends right by the brown building at the Ruisseau David parking, also known as Parc municipal de l'Érablière.
Previous unofficial FKT can be viewed with the old Strava segment (which is a little shorter then the proposed FKT route but cover the previous 5 peaks races, both the 25k and 50k)
https://www.strava.com/segments/17919670
Comments
Quick informations about some fastest known times to beat on the female side. Lyne Bessette 3:11 in 2019 and Mélanie Nadeau 3:12 in 2018, those times were set during the 5 Peaks Race 25k but have not been submited to the FKT site to this day.
We can now say that the official female FKT to beat is 3:09. 🙂