La Réserve, QC 02/16/12

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
Yesterday, we took a one-day break from the Laurentian areas along Autoroute 15 to cross into the Lanaudière region so I could ski a hill that's been on my Québec hit list for years: La Réserve.

There couldn't have been more than 20 people on the hill, if that. Here's the biggest crowd we encountered all day:
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At about 1,000 verts, La Réserve is laid out exactly like a 2/3-size version of Magic Mountain (VT), but with better views. At the top, you have a 360-degree panorama of the entire region, with every turn offering a different vista, which includes a couple beautiful lakes:
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You can also see another ski area on the other side of the nearby village Saint Donat: Mont Garceau (in the upper right-hand corner):
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Just like Magic, La Réserve's upper mountain has some nice steep pitches and a bunch of gorgeous glades.
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Juliet didn't want to join me on any of the tougher woods lines (plenty of cover, but with no recent snow, they were scratchy in spots), so we did a few runs together in the novice glades on the lower hill:
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A great day that would have only been better with some fresh snow to allow me to ski the steeper stuff:
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The glades look pretty cool - something I miss locally. Alta doesn't have plentiful or long glades.
 
Forgot to mention -- our après-ski following La Réserve was coffee and patisseries at the Boulangerie Saint-Donat:
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For those who don't get up to Quebec often, a good portion of the la belle province's place names, humor, and cuss words are based in catholicism. Our pastries were so good that we grabbed some for the road:

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Check out their name ^^: pets de soeur (nun's farts)! I like how they translate it into English as "nun's pastry." I guess they don't trust anglophones to get the joke.
 
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