Hey Skategoat, no i am not an Intrawest employee but I do own businesses in the area. I couldn't agree more about Tremblant's horrible and inaccurate forecasts and description of runs open. They are so bad that sometimes they even report that it is rainning here when the sun is out. You would think that if they were going to be wrong all the time it would at least be in their favor. They are also creative with their arithmatic. If Beauvalon is open top to bottom, they count that as about 4 seperate runs when they say how many trails are open. Despite all that, the best time to be out on the mountain is usually right before Christmas and right after the Ericson world cup in mid January. We get busy again as soon as the school breaks start up and stay busy until easter. Best time of day to ride is bright and early as most of the folks can't seem to get on the hill before 10-10:30. Most of us are on and off by 11 am . As for the versant soleil closing early, Tremblant needed to get it closed early in order to start work on the lift. They have lowered the entire bottom station 10 feet so that once the new Soleil village is built there will not be a hill to climb in order to get to the lifts. They also changed the cable on that lift this year. All of the early closing will be fixed by next season as they are building new housing units there this winter and will have to offer service for these units. There will also be a seond lift opening there by 2007 as well as almost doubling the skiable terrain in the south bowl.
I will keep you posted on the snow conditions as well as try to get you an accurate # of runs open.