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Recommendations for carving in Quebec


mnovak

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hey Derf

that was my question too. There are so many good places in the province.

I think my current favourite would be leMassif. going there with my wife Dec18-22. They are having their second annual Santa Claus day on Dec18. Its a free day if you dress up as Santa Claus. Had such fun last year we're going again.

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hey ARCrider,

how far away is leMassif from Tremblant? i booked a trip to tremblant fromt he 15-18 of dec. it was a pretty sweet deal 260CAD each for 3 days of lifts. + transportation to and from Toronto, plus slope side hotel for 6 ppl.

anyways wondering if they will have enough snow up there at that time frame this year. i have been going to tremblant more or less the same time frame for the past 3 years and they always manage to get TONS of snow in.. but i just checked the webcam.. and it's still a golf course out there :P

do you guys think they will get a huge dumping soon ?

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hey ARCrider,

how far away is leMassif from Tremblant? i booked a trip to tremblant fromt he 15-18 of dec. it was a pretty sweet deal 260CAD each for 3 days of lifts. + transportation to and from Toronto, plus slope side hotel for 6 ppl.

anyways wondering if they will have enough snow up there at that time frame this year. i have been going to tremblant more or less the same time frame for the past 3 years and they always manage to get TONS of snow in.. but i just checked the webcam.. and it's still a golf course out there :P

do you guys think they will get a huge dumping soon ?

Tremblant is 90 minutes north of Montreal. leMassif is 3hrs east of Montreal. That ~4.5hrs of separation by way of Montreal. not too close to each other.

leMassif is 30-45 minutes beyond Mt.Ste.Anne

no worries

you will almost certainly have plenty of the white stuff by mid Dec. If it hasn't dumped naturally, their snowmaking will make up the difference.

Chris Houghton My vote is Mont Ste Anne. Not commercial and crowded like Tremblant, and lots of open groomers for carving. Also good bootfitters close by (Sport Andre Bouchard in Beaupre). For powder and trees for sure LeMassif.

I do like Ste-Anne for carving terrain, but I've been there too often and leMassif does have some good grooming.

nice thing about Quebec City is having the choice of Stoneham, Ste-Anne or leMassif. all are reasonably close

or you could look into the Eastern Townships. good packages to be had with a choice of Orford, Bromont, Sutton or Owl's Head.

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Here's a breakdown of the places worth while for carving:

Regions

1. Quebec City -- Le Massif, Mont Sainte Anne, Stoneham, Le Relais

2. Laurentians (north of Montreal) -- Tremblant, Mont Blanc, Mont Saint Sauveur, Mont Avila

3. Eastern Townships (south east of Montreal ) -- Orford, Bromont.

Quebec City -- coldest weather of the 3 regions and the most snow.

Laurentians -- almost as cold as Quebec. The windiest of the 3 regions and has the iciest conditions.

Eastern Townships -- the warmest of the 3 regions. Gets more snow than the Laurentians but not as much as Quebec City. Has the softest conditions of the 3 regions.

Resorts

Le Massif and Mont Sainte Anne have already been described so I won't do so here. Mont Sainte Anne has lost of hardbooters.

Stoneham is smaller than Le Massif, but one of the few places where there are far more boarders than skiiers. The 3rd mountain is great for carving. They used to have the ISF world cups there.

I haven't been to Le Relais, but it looks pretty decent for carving. It's hosting the world cup alpine comp from Dec. 17-18. Check their site for more info.

Tremblant is obvious. :-) Mont Blanc is near Tremblant, but quite a bit cheaper, smaller and less crowded. I go there often. The runs near the park are the best ones for carving.

You're right about the Eastern Townships. Sutton has the narrowest trails and is not an option for carving. Owl's Head has 2 runs that are good for carving, the rest are too narrow. But Orford is decent and Bromont is not bad. The problem with Orford is that the bottom is pretty flat. Orford is also very windy (almost as much as Tremblant) and one their best runs (the one where the hold races) is closed for the ski school just about every Saturday. The problem with Bromont is crowding. The grooming at Bromont is really good and the conditions are softer than Orford.

That's about it. You'll probably want to check out the Quebec Association of Ski Resorts's site . It's pretty good and lots of useful info and a summary of all the resorts.

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Guest glennmorton

Tremblant has a couple of good ones.

If you are going to do any runs on the south side for carving, hit them first since it will be to crowded after about 10:00. My usual attack is to part on the North Side, and from the top take a warm up on Beauchemin Haute, down as far at the Lowell Thomas Chair. Take that back to the top, then go South Side to Beauvallon, and do both Haut and Bas of that. That should put you at the bottom of the south side for the Gondola before the ski school opens (this assumes you are riding up the North Side for the first time shortly after opening).

Head back the North Side and do Duncan, which should still be in good shape. This is a ripper of a black that is super wide, and take that right to the bottom of the North Side.

Glenn

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Tremblant most of the time is terrible. If hit at the right time though (usually weekdays in mid-February, early March) it can be quite awesome.

Best bet for a trip is either straight up Ste Anne, or.. a slightly more interesting trip to

Le Massif region. Massif is okay for carving, has some very high quality wide (beautiful!) runs but layout is not too great for carving. Go there for the pow/trees if it happens, and if it's clear out and -25 degrees, head to Mont Grands Fonds, it is completely empty, beautiful, and seems to be designed for an alpine board! Some sweet wide blue runs, as well as cruising wide green runs with intermittent trees that usually have little packed powder jumps formed around them. They have a steeeep race course if that's your thing

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It's a really pretty 30-40 minute drive east if my memory is right. Where you're staying is nice, Massif is really close, but you still have to drive up 2600ft to the upper parking lot, and then take this awesome winding road down to the base of the mountain if you want to park there. All there is in front of Massif is a tiny town of old farmhouses, tons of snow, and a lift right near the river, it has awesome views. If there's a temperature inversion, you could be fooled into thinking your out west since the clouds hang around at 200ft on the river and you're up above them at 2550, it seems you are in the rockies.

Best cross country skiing/snowshoeing is right around le massif, I think it was about 2 minutes west of the upper Massif parking lot.

If it's possible, there's also the best backcountry in the east in Chics Chocs parc in Gaspesie.

fmi650.jpg

fmi7hj.jpg

that's (the other) Mount Logan in the chics chocs

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Hi there guys, tremblant is slated to open next friday. We made snow on saturday night but it warmed up today, about 10 degrees. We have not missed an opening day in 10 years. For the last 2 years we have been at nearly 100% open for Christmas. That having been said, there should be good snow for mid December with very few people on the hill.

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I've stayed out of this discussion because I've ranted about Mont Tremblant many times here and you're probably all tired of it.

But, I need to jump in here when someone suggests an early season trip to Tremblant. Sean, if you are an Intrawest employee or could somehow be offended by negative comments, you should move on to another thread.

Everyone who is familiar with Tremblant knows that Intrawest's snow conditions reports are total B.S. They are written with marketing goggles on. They make Killington's ski reports look pessimistic. When counting "number of trails" open, they like to count every cat track, ski-out and bunny trail. I think they even count the cafeteria line.

If you're looking for the inside scoop on Tremblant, visit:

www.tremblant-insider.com

Go to the chat area for the latest conditions from someone who skis the mountain every day. This guy is Intrawest's worst nightmare.

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and tremblant and a couple of the smaller areas as well

I would say that st anne is my choice of the two, tremblant is a icey, windy hell hole of a mountain full of people that can't ski, think stratton clientel, wind similar to any place near MT washington like wild cat or sunday river and hard pack that is so solid it is shiny.

However if you hit it on a day that is not busy, not windy and the groomers put down the bong while doing their job the place would probably be great.

if you like bumps and there is fresh or its warm there is some good stuff there as well.

St Anne, only been there three times but all were good, decent conditions, not crowded and I never felt like I was gonna get cleaned out but some jackass in a one peice.

I would actually like to hit tremblant again to see if was just that I have had a spree bad days to ride there, the place has potential, I bet in the spring the place is a blast.

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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.

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I guess I was asking for a flame war. Sorry if I came across as harsh Sean. Part of my frustration with Tremblant comes from the fact that I used to ski there in the 80's and it was such a great place. Cheap and cozy. All the money went into grooming and the ski experience rather than timeshares and huck-fests.

Thanks for not taking the bait Sean.

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Skategoat, you're not the only one, I am not too fond of Trembalnt myself. I consider it more of a skiers moutain than a snowboarder's mountain. The southside is not so bad, but it's very crowded, the north side is less crowded, but it is steep at the top and flat at the bottom, having to skate sometimes. As for the Soleil side, it is too narrow for my linking.

As for mountain recommendations, my favorite carving mountain is the north side of Mont Saint-Anne. The south side is ok, but gets bumpy/icy in the afternoon on weekends. The grooming is excellent though. Le Massif is breathtaking, but last time I went, I got 3 days of ice (early January).

Other nice places are Bromont (never been on weekends though), St-Sauveur (small but they have the best grooming), Le Relais (small but less crowded).

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