CarvCanada Posted June 25, 2004 Report Share Posted June 25, 2004 If any of you East Coast Americans are planning on a sweet snowboarding vacation up to the crisp and free land of Canada, stay away from Tremblant! Everyone seems to talk about it as a nice place, but it's not! It's a very beautiful mountain, it's huge and has amazing carving terrain with good lifts, however, it's always crowded with newbs who scrape down the trails en masse and destroy the grooming, everything is expensive. The condos huge complexes and you have to walk far in crowds. Good recommendations from someone who lives here: Mont-Sainte Anne / Stoneham You can get a little cheap condo in the middle of these mountains. A regular price ticket for a week gives you access to 3 mountains, which are all very close and there's shuttles every 20 minutes in the morning and afternoon, there and back. The mountains are SOOO sweet. Beautiful grooming, either with slight freeze by the morning for super G holding, or it's warmer and it's a powder day! Ultimate carving terrain, (not very good glades though) If ever there are big lift lines on some parts of the mountain they have extra T-Bars nearby that go through the woods to the top! On your way up you can watch glade action. Night skiing rare though... usually only on Thrusdays Le Massif is the most beautiful mountain I've ever been to. Another mountain filled with wide, flat blues. Everything cheap and homely, far away from city. (1.5hrs east Quebec City) If your vacation is during national vacation like Christmas, go to Le Massif it won't be crowded, Ste Anne will be more crowded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoch Posted June 26, 2004 Report Share Posted June 26, 2004 I disagree with your view of Tremblant, every time i have been there the snow was perfect, the lines were short and since we actually tried to find deals on everything, it wasn't that expensive. The only thing i didn't like were the mean french canadians, and there weren't that many of em, so it wasn't that bad. I think it's a nice place, but thanks for the suggestions for next time i head that direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarvCanada Posted June 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2004 then you'll love Le Massif twice as much ! :) hehe my local frenchies aren't trying to be mean... besides the girls are really really hot!!! 500 meters from Mont Sainte-Anne, there is a wicked ice kartingt track. the karts are very fast, have desert sand stormer style tires up front and big wide ice block tires on the rear. the track is laid out so that there is little time not in oversteer :) fun fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaa Posted June 28, 2004 Report Share Posted June 28, 2004 I was able to make it to Tremblant a couple years ago, and over the course of a couple days riding, I was only able to find clear enough trail to carve ONCE. When you say "en-masse" you're not kidding. Every trail I rode was a river of people. If I didn't make straight fall line turns, I could probably have taken out half the people on the mountain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skategoat Posted June 28, 2004 Report Share Posted June 28, 2004 That's because it's the closest "Big" mountain to Toronto. I've been going there since a student lift ticket cost $11. The problem is Intrawest. Intrawest really doesn't give a crap about the skiing or riding. The mountain is there to fuel revenue into their condos and timeshares. It's expensive, the grooming sucks and the workers are surly if not downright mean. The worst are the wanna-be cops that roam the streets looking for dangerous criminals like snowball throwers. Lord help you if Pat, the Fat Androgenous Security Guard catches you having fun in a loud and boisterous way. After you get over the wow factor of the vertical drop (remember, I'm from Southern Ontario), the terrain really wears on you. The worst part is that there are way too many choke points where 3-4 runs suddenly converge into one. On the south side, all but one run funnels down into a single run that is choked with moguls and bad skiers. To make matters worse, they often close off one side of the run for races. At the bottom of Nansen, the long green circle run, beginner skiers are suddenly asked to ski through a narrow rock cut under a bridge. I see so many collisions here, it's not even funny. On the north side, more choke points and some badly windswept portions where you will run over rocks and pebbles even after a big snowfall. On the west side of the mountain, there are tons of flat spots where, if you don't maintain speed on your board, you will be forced to unclip and walk. For the billions of dollars Intrawest has poured into development, they have done very little to improve the skiing/riding. It has not improved since the the $11 days. And now I think a lift ticket costs $75. Lessee, what else? The food stinks. The lift tickets are expensive. The "village" is fake. The place is just not a skier's or rider's mountain. Like I said, Intrawest is all about real estate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AlpentalRider Posted June 29, 2004 Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 got one word for ya "whistler" :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoch Posted June 29, 2004 Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 Gotta admit, B.C. is deffinently where it's at...i preffered the other side of the valley though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skategoat Posted June 29, 2004 Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 Don't want to start a fight here but the interior of BC blows Whistler out of the water in every category except vertical feet. What I can't stand about Whistler is the way the conditions change so drastically from the alpine to mid-mountain, to base. When I'm there, it always seems to be raining at the base. So, I almost always stay at the top. That means I'm only using a third of the vertical anyways. Last winter, I went to Kelowna for the first time instead of Whistler. In three days, I did Silver Star, Big White and Apex. It was simply awesome. And I spent about 1/2 what I would have in Whistler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarvCanada Posted June 29, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 haha you nailed it on Tremblant, skategoat. I forgot about mentioning how all the good runs converge onto some flat green where you have to skate for a kilometer! haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derf Posted July 4, 2004 Report Share Posted July 4, 2004 Tremblant is in my opinion also an hawful and highly overrated resort. The layout of the trail is less than good, there are enormous amounts of flats, it is quite crowded (because is it is so highly rated amoung skiers for some unknown reason) and even with quick lifts, the wait is long. The North side is less crowded and a little more decent, but definitaly not worth the price. Ste-Anne is quite nice for carving, good steeps, good blue runs, especially the North side. A little too much bump runs for my liking. It gets crowded on the weekend and the trails get choppy because of the crowds. The view on top of the mountain is awsome, especially on top of La Crête. Here are some pics I took there http://derf.dyndns.org/%7Ederf/2001-01-02%20Mont%20Ste-Anne/index.html As for Le Massif, I agree, it is the nicest mountain of the province, but it's becoming a little too popular for it size, and since they started to do some more snowmaking, it's getting icier. I booked a 4 day vacation there a year and a half ago, it was so icy, we skied for half days and scalped our ticket in the parking for the last day (multi day tickets) because we had enough of the ice. Derf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skategoat Posted July 7, 2004 Report Share Posted July 7, 2004 I think a Quebec meet-up might be in order. If Massif and Ste. Anne are too crowded or icy, what about Bromont, Sutton and the other Eastern Townships resorts? Good vertical, not crowded, not expensive. Because they are so close to the US border, some of our American friends from Vermont and NY can join us. Any interest? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derf Posted July 12, 2004 Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Originally posted by skategoat I think a Quebec meet-up might be in order. If Massif and Ste. Anne are too crowded or icy, what about Bromont, Sutton and the other Eastern Townships resorts? Good vertical, not crowded, not expensive. Because they are so close to the US border, some of our American friends from Vermont and NY can join us. Any interest? Excellent idea, especially here, in the province of Québec, where it seems like alpine snowboard never died (or diminished I should say):D . Derf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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