What a week-end! My wife and I headed out Thursday night to le Massif for an annual anniversary celebration. We’ve been together 11 years and she is still hanging on to me. I wonder why cause I’ve tested her limits probably more than mine.
Tons of snow out there. As always, when leaving Quebec city, the snow banks get bigger and bigger.
Friday morning, we drove up to the summit lodge and waited for the patrollers to open up the gates at 9:00am. There’s about 25 of us waiting for that moment. Came 9AM and the crowd rushed to the slopes to get first tracks at big 2’’ of fresh powder on beautifully groomed terrain. Perfect for my parents and my wife to carve up some turns. I gotta admit it was sweet skiing but I wanted more, I was out looking for powder stashes from Wednesday’s storm. Found some pretty nice powder in the glades but it was almost all skied out into bumps. Not that bumps aren’t good, I just don’t crave them.
Then I got a little more adventurous and hoped over some closed terrain to find a foot of fresh there. After lunch, we did a couple more runs on groomed terrain and then my wife headed in. I said I’ll only be out an hour or so… This time, I was alone and hungry for more. I went towards La Charlevoix wich is the downhill run they made for the national training center. This trail has a 45degree pitch, so they say, but it is closed most of the time for training or for safety reasons. Great!! I have it all to myself I said. A foot of fresh in there. I would estimate that pitch to be more like 40 degrees at the most. After the steep section there’s an opening to the right where I could see untracked powder and found 2 feet in there. This was paradise floating at high speed. Ran into a coach who told me to get out of the training zone or the patrollers would. No argue there but came back for an other run.
This time, did it again but headed in the woods before that coach could see me. So I followed some tracks into 2 feet of powder heading south towards the St-Laurence water where there are no more trails, no roads, no ski patrols and no one in sight. It was tight tree skiing with fresh tracks, rolls and knolls and some drop offs. I was cruising down, went off a knoll, landed on the back side of an other, did a front flip (accidently) and landed 6 feet lower down with only one ski. ``Wow!! That was cool…. Euuuuh… Hey stupid!! What the hell are you doing?! You got kids and a wife!! You gotta bring bread on the table for Christ sake!`` So I kinda bailed out of there in a hurry. Did a traverse, had to bushwack and even had to drop an 8 foot ledge to get out. It was time to head back..
Next day, -27 C, sunny. We hit the jackpot for hard packed snow corduroy. Just terrific carving surface.
In the afternoon, I paid the big bucks (70$) for the introduction to backcountry experience. They give you backcountry gear (Fat Skis, naxo bindings, skins and poles) and you follow the guide to their private terrain. They told me there was plenty of powder. And I was not disappointed. Knee deep powder, untracked through wide open glades with knolls, rolls and some small drop offs. Amaising how those fat skis are easy through knee deep powder compared to my race skis. Just effortless!! The backcountry adventure out here has huge potential if you know where to go and if you are not alone of course. The mountain want to develop the backcountry skiing adventure through guided trips. The spot we did is an appetizer of what they want to do. They wanted to test the market for backcountry experience. There’s even talks about heli skiing in the white mountains further up north.of le Massif. I totally disagree on that one.
I’ll get pics later on.
Sorry, this is too long.
JP
Tons of snow out there. As always, when leaving Quebec city, the snow banks get bigger and bigger.
Friday morning, we drove up to the summit lodge and waited for the patrollers to open up the gates at 9:00am. There’s about 25 of us waiting for that moment. Came 9AM and the crowd rushed to the slopes to get first tracks at big 2’’ of fresh powder on beautifully groomed terrain. Perfect for my parents and my wife to carve up some turns. I gotta admit it was sweet skiing but I wanted more, I was out looking for powder stashes from Wednesday’s storm. Found some pretty nice powder in the glades but it was almost all skied out into bumps. Not that bumps aren’t good, I just don’t crave them.
Then I got a little more adventurous and hoped over some closed terrain to find a foot of fresh there. After lunch, we did a couple more runs on groomed terrain and then my wife headed in. I said I’ll only be out an hour or so… This time, I was alone and hungry for more. I went towards La Charlevoix wich is the downhill run they made for the national training center. This trail has a 45degree pitch, so they say, but it is closed most of the time for training or for safety reasons. Great!! I have it all to myself I said. A foot of fresh in there. I would estimate that pitch to be more like 40 degrees at the most. After the steep section there’s an opening to the right where I could see untracked powder and found 2 feet in there. This was paradise floating at high speed. Ran into a coach who told me to get out of the training zone or the patrollers would. No argue there but came back for an other run.
This time, did it again but headed in the woods before that coach could see me. So I followed some tracks into 2 feet of powder heading south towards the St-Laurence water where there are no more trails, no roads, no ski patrols and no one in sight. It was tight tree skiing with fresh tracks, rolls and knolls and some drop offs. I was cruising down, went off a knoll, landed on the back side of an other, did a front flip (accidently) and landed 6 feet lower down with only one ski. ``Wow!! That was cool…. Euuuuh… Hey stupid!! What the hell are you doing?! You got kids and a wife!! You gotta bring bread on the table for Christ sake!`` So I kinda bailed out of there in a hurry. Did a traverse, had to bushwack and even had to drop an 8 foot ledge to get out. It was time to head back..
Next day, -27 C, sunny. We hit the jackpot for hard packed snow corduroy. Just terrific carving surface.
In the afternoon, I paid the big bucks (70$) for the introduction to backcountry experience. They give you backcountry gear (Fat Skis, naxo bindings, skins and poles) and you follow the guide to their private terrain. They told me there was plenty of powder. And I was not disappointed. Knee deep powder, untracked through wide open glades with knolls, rolls and some small drop offs. Amaising how those fat skis are easy through knee deep powder compared to my race skis. Just effortless!! The backcountry adventure out here has huge potential if you know where to go and if you are not alone of course. The mountain want to develop the backcountry skiing adventure through guided trips. The spot we did is an appetizer of what they want to do. They wanted to test the market for backcountry experience. There’s even talks about heli skiing in the white mountains further up north.of le Massif. I totally disagree on that one.
I’ll get pics later on.
Sorry, this is too long.
JP
