Patrick
Active member
Well better start it's own topic instead of always tagging on the Camp Fortune one.
Camp Fortune is opening topic
After the 12cm that fell overnight in town + 50cm of snow in the last week + opportunity to get out and make a few turns in this very busy time of year. I had taken the day off, because of a pile of appointments and stuff. So here is my day summary:
Cleared the snow in front of the garage in the back.
8:30 - Chiropractor appointment
Bring my broken electric shaver when store open at 9:30.
9:40 - Dentist appointment
9:48 - arrival at dentist
11ish - left dentist and went back home
noon-ish - left home to go skiing, stuck in traffic in Gatineau. :roll:
12:57 - start skiing
2:15 - end skiing and drive back to town (construction and highway on-ramp in Gatineau closed). :x
3:00 - quick change of clothes at home
3:10 - pick up Morgane at school
3:30 - Morgane's dentist appointment
3:38 - We were stuck in traffic, 8 minutes late again.
4:30 - Arrived home and clear the snow in front of the house.
5:10 - Walk to Tara's school to pick her up.
6ish - supper + took more time to leave, because wife wasn't feeling well.
7ish - left for Cascades with Morgane.
8:01 - start skiing
9:55 - last chair.
This is one of the reason why I prefer Ottawa as a ski town compared to Los Angeles. Today reflected why I loved living in Ottawa so much. Snow everywhere, pull Tara in the toboggan from school. Skiing close by. Ottawa is a great place for people that like the outdoors any season of the year.
Mont Cascades (not the closest) is 20 miles/30km from my home and probably a bit less from downtown. Great way to get out of town and make some turns. So initially I was thinking of only heading out for a couple of hours during the day, but I also remembered that Morgane wanted to go skiing last weekend. So instead of taking a 2-hour ticket, I decided to take a full-day (I had a 50% coupon).
Although most local areas were open, only Edelweiss (MSSI) and Cascades had night skiing. As usual, Fortune had the best terrain open with runs like Slalom (black) and Clifford (blue) plus one green or two, I don't know? However Fortune doesn't have a very flexible lift ticket option, it's either half-day or full-day. At Cascades, you can buy a ticket for 2, 3, 4 hours or for a full-day.
Spensar said it all regarding the number of trails open. Although if you look at the website, it has a detailed list of runs open and while I don't dispute the fact that those runs equal pretty much like one real run (138m vertical) with slight variable, these variations have names. I agree that Cascades is pretty bad for that, especially when the different in those runs are just a few meters at one point and all merge together halfway down and at all together once you start off also. Okay, enough of the bitching.
Day conditions:
Open runs were perfect groomed tracks. No Eastern hardpack here. Fun stuff and some fluff on the side. Funny thing happened to me, I ended up skiing two different closed runs that weren't roped off and though were open. It's funny, a boarder was looking at the scenery at the top of the mountain and asked me what city it was overthere. WTF??? :shock: I asked myself, How many cities with 1 million people with a downtown core full of buildings are there around here??? When I told him the answer, we was surprised that Ottawa was so close. Tourists???:roll:
I guess someone had forgotten to put a rope at the cattrack. The first run (which was marked open on the website (but only from the middle) had a bunch of windblown snow on top. The skiing was skeetchy, probably because it was supposed to be closed. It had broken artifical snow and huge piles of death cookies from groomers underneath the powder. Next run over and my next run was the Alliance/Facade trail (blue/black). Not as bad as the previous run and down midway where the mountain hadn't blown pile of snow and work, the pow was fun. I was going to try that one again when I noticed a Patrol had put up a rope. Not surprising, because that could have been dangerous from people that aren't used to ski "marginal" conditions.
You could feel the temps dropping. It was probably -5c when I started skiing, but it definitely felt colder after 2 hours. The clouds moved in and we got some snow squall. After 9 runs it was time to get back to town.
Night
Morgane was delighted when I asked her if she wanted to go night skiing. I asked my wife if she wanted to go instead of me, but she wasn't feeling well. Oh well, I tried. Morgane has a 5th grade ski passport which she can used to ski for free across Quebec and Ontario. Unfortunately 2 of the 4 local hills aren't included and the fact that we were only going to ski 2 hours, we decided that it was used to use one of her 3 free coupons for Cascades.
Condtions were still packed powder, but not as great as in the afternoon. It's true that there was maybe about 50 or more skiers on the hill, compared to maybe 20 earlier in the day. Definitely colder. On our second run, Morgane lost a ski in the Powder and couldn't find it. :shock: Never though that would ever on a marked trail on any of the Ottawa local hills. :lol: After 4 runs, her toes were frozen. We went in to warm up then back for other 3 runs until last chair.
So in summary, no isssh sound, except maybe on that artificial snow midway on Pioneer (top being closed and can only be access through a narrow cattrack in the woods).
Camp Fortune is opening topic
After the 12cm that fell overnight in town + 50cm of snow in the last week + opportunity to get out and make a few turns in this very busy time of year. I had taken the day off, because of a pile of appointments and stuff. So here is my day summary:
Cleared the snow in front of the garage in the back.
8:30 - Chiropractor appointment
Bring my broken electric shaver when store open at 9:30.
9:40 - Dentist appointment
9:48 - arrival at dentist
11ish - left dentist and went back home
noon-ish - left home to go skiing, stuck in traffic in Gatineau. :roll:
12:57 - start skiing
2:15 - end skiing and drive back to town (construction and highway on-ramp in Gatineau closed). :x
3:00 - quick change of clothes at home
3:10 - pick up Morgane at school
3:30 - Morgane's dentist appointment
3:38 - We were stuck in traffic, 8 minutes late again.
4:30 - Arrived home and clear the snow in front of the house.
5:10 - Walk to Tara's school to pick her up.
6ish - supper + took more time to leave, because wife wasn't feeling well.
7ish - left for Cascades with Morgane.
8:01 - start skiing
9:55 - last chair.
This is one of the reason why I prefer Ottawa as a ski town compared to Los Angeles. Today reflected why I loved living in Ottawa so much. Snow everywhere, pull Tara in the toboggan from school. Skiing close by. Ottawa is a great place for people that like the outdoors any season of the year.
Mont Cascades (not the closest) is 20 miles/30km from my home and probably a bit less from downtown. Great way to get out of town and make some turns. So initially I was thinking of only heading out for a couple of hours during the day, but I also remembered that Morgane wanted to go skiing last weekend. So instead of taking a 2-hour ticket, I decided to take a full-day (I had a 50% coupon).
Although most local areas were open, only Edelweiss (MSSI) and Cascades had night skiing. As usual, Fortune had the best terrain open with runs like Slalom (black) and Clifford (blue) plus one green or two, I don't know? However Fortune doesn't have a very flexible lift ticket option, it's either half-day or full-day. At Cascades, you can buy a ticket for 2, 3, 4 hours or for a full-day.
Spensar":11qbzzwv said:Cascade was open this week too. But, unfortunately, the website shows 6 runs open, and they are charging full pop but only 2 runs are open, 1 the small beginner run.
Other closed runs were lighted and there was plenty of snow to open them. Chicken and egg stuff folk, not enough skiers to open more runs, or not enough skiers because runs aren't open. Either case, be honest in your marketing. I also called before going but couldn't get a live person to confirm conditions "check out our website".
Spensar said it all regarding the number of trails open. Although if you look at the website, it has a detailed list of runs open and while I don't dispute the fact that those runs equal pretty much like one real run (138m vertical) with slight variable, these variations have names. I agree that Cascades is pretty bad for that, especially when the different in those runs are just a few meters at one point and all merge together halfway down and at all together once you start off also. Okay, enough of the bitching.
Day conditions:
Open runs were perfect groomed tracks. No Eastern hardpack here. Fun stuff and some fluff on the side. Funny thing happened to me, I ended up skiing two different closed runs that weren't roped off and though were open. It's funny, a boarder was looking at the scenery at the top of the mountain and asked me what city it was overthere. WTF??? :shock: I asked myself, How many cities with 1 million people with a downtown core full of buildings are there around here??? When I told him the answer, we was surprised that Ottawa was so close. Tourists???:roll:
I guess someone had forgotten to put a rope at the cattrack. The first run (which was marked open on the website (but only from the middle) had a bunch of windblown snow on top. The skiing was skeetchy, probably because it was supposed to be closed. It had broken artifical snow and huge piles of death cookies from groomers underneath the powder. Next run over and my next run was the Alliance/Facade trail (blue/black). Not as bad as the previous run and down midway where the mountain hadn't blown pile of snow and work, the pow was fun. I was going to try that one again when I noticed a Patrol had put up a rope. Not surprising, because that could have been dangerous from people that aren't used to ski "marginal" conditions.
You could feel the temps dropping. It was probably -5c when I started skiing, but it definitely felt colder after 2 hours. The clouds moved in and we got some snow squall. After 9 runs it was time to get back to town.
Night
Morgane was delighted when I asked her if she wanted to go night skiing. I asked my wife if she wanted to go instead of me, but she wasn't feeling well. Oh well, I tried. Morgane has a 5th grade ski passport which she can used to ski for free across Quebec and Ontario. Unfortunately 2 of the 4 local hills aren't included and the fact that we were only going to ski 2 hours, we decided that it was used to use one of her 3 free coupons for Cascades.
Condtions were still packed powder, but not as great as in the afternoon. It's true that there was maybe about 50 or more skiers on the hill, compared to maybe 20 earlier in the day. Definitely colder. On our second run, Morgane lost a ski in the Powder and couldn't find it. :shock: Never though that would ever on a marked trail on any of the Ottawa local hills. :lol: After 4 runs, her toes were frozen. We went in to warm up then back for other 3 runs until last chair.
So in summary, no isssh sound, except maybe on that artificial snow midway on Pioneer (top being closed and can only be access through a narrow cattrack in the woods).