After the Christmas rains, and with skis in bad need of a tune up, we were expecting to have an exciting time on the ice at Tremblant (think Bambi on ice). But we ran into snow on the drive up and it kept snowing all day so WOW, what a great first day of the ski season for Janick and I!
Quebecers have a great saying; “Ça va bien aller” which loosely translates into “Chill dude…” So, if you are nervous about skiing in COVID, it’s a good mantra to keep in mind. If you’ve ever skied at Mont Tremblant before, you’re familiar with the windy peak so the mandatory face masks are not hard to enforce. You can only ride on the chair lifts with your bubble, but the quad chairs are big enough that two strangers (with mandatory masks) can ride up on opposite ends.
And we discovered the fun of the car chalet! We brought a carpet to stand on for changing boots, and the lunch time heated seats were sooo nice! We nicknamed our Outback the #Chalubaru! Next time we’ll bring some camp chairs and possibly a small propane heater (for outside).
Now as for the skiing, it was actually mid-season good, even if only 41% of the mountain was open. There was lots of fluffy chowder to make our turns between the occasional icy patch just to keep us awake. We started on the North side and did a couple of runs on Lowell Thomas to get warmed up and get stoked for the day.
With the lifts turning at less than full capacity due to COVID, we quickly learned that the singles line or ‘Ligne Simple’ is the quickest way to get back up the mountain. Quite often, Janick and I were put together as ‘singles’ but sometimes we rode up separately with strangers which always felt very safe as we were outdoors, sitting far apart and fully masked up.
We explored most of the 41 open trails, going from North to South to Soleil and back to North. Unfortunately, Edge will take a few more days of snow but this week is looking good, so you might want to get ready for its opening early in January.
We did go into Le Grand Manitou at the peak to check out the facility. It is not serving food or drinks, but you can use the washroom and stay inside for 15 minutes to warm up. They have staff at the entrance to control how many people are inside. We didn’t have to wait and found that there was lots of space, so you didn’t need to be near anyone and there were several tables free to sit if needed. Very well maintained and controlled, and a welcome relief from the winds at the peak.
We closed the day on the North side, making laps on Duncan Haut and Duncan Bas in yet more soft snow, like icing on a cake. Our legs were reminding us we weren’t yet in mid-season shape even though the snow was.
We can’t return tomorrow but it’s too bad because it looks like a bluebird sunny day and then another 15cm of snow forecast for Wednesday! This week is looking to be fantastic, so get your puffy and Gortex out to Tremblant soon.
If this is an indication of how 2020/2021 ski season will be, we are very stoked to get out and support our ski industry!
Dale Witty, Skimedia Reporter
