Frankontour
New member
Today, I went to Val Saint-Côme, north east of Montreal. It has been a pretty exciting day, with the last chance of the season to ski one of the biggest triple black diamond of the east. In the morning, it was some real bad conditions, with very very frozen snow. It's just near 11h30 that sun began to be present... and it stayed until 1h PM, so the snow changed for super nice soft in just 30 minutes, as the ski area is facing south. The 2nd summit wasn't open today, so we just had 750' of vertical, with the high speed quad running with absolutely no crowd. It was sad to lose 1/3 of the terrain, but at least, the main side was in excellent shape !Particularly, "l'Avalanche" was SUPER great. It's one of my favorite trail for the spring skiing. During winter, the upper part is always icy, icy, icy and icy. Many people just don't understand why they make snow in that trail. When spring arrives, it changes in a wonderful bump trail of near 40 degrees, for the 2 first pitchs. A sad thing is that the third pitch didn't have bumps today... don't know why. At least, I found a way to join the lower Vasy Mollo which is since this year the competition bump trail of the resort. This one was really good too. <BR> <BR>This is the center part of the lower side of the mountain (main side) <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2103.jpg" ALT="VSC Power"> <BR> <BR>And this is the first pitch of l'Avalanche. Once again, clouds = we don't see the big bumps <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/sad.gif" ALT="
">((( <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2104.jpg" ALT="L'Avalanche in great shape !!"> <BR> <BR>I talked of a mega extreme trail. In fact, we certainly talk of a top 5 in Quebec (#4 of my craziest official trails ever taken). It's probably the biggest pitch of the province. It's completely crazy. The pitch is only about 400' high, but it's ± 55 degrees all the length. On summer, it's a huge cliff that is inclined a little bit. When I saw it for the first time, in 1998-99 season, I went to the base lodge right after my run to get a new trail map, cause I was just not believing that they made a trail in a so crazy place. What a surprise to see it was really an official trail ! wow ! It would be impossible to ski there, without snowmaking (except with 30 feet of snowfalls may be lol), so there was still enough artificial snow to ski it today, despite the most rocky place was at the extreme limit. Tomorrow, it won't be possible anymore to ski it this winter, as it's too dangerous to remove our skis for the little zone without snow. Oh, I forgot ... it's a semi-glade in more !!!! <BR> <BR>It's really tough to have a view that shows the steepness of it. This is a not so bad one, but it's behind the trees. I must say under the chairlift, it's just rocks over rocks in a 40 degree zone. So the trail (on right) is really really steeper than under chairlift and 2-3 times higher, too !! <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2105.jpg" ALT="Pins Rouges on right"> <BR> <BR>As you can see, the face shot seems less steep, as the photograph was near the base of the pitch, so it seems less vertical. Nevertheless, it's a damn big pitch !! (the most crazy is that despite the rocky place, it was still open !!) <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2106.jpg" ALT="Frankontour survived to Pins Rouges !!!"> <BR> <BR>Finally, a plunging view from the top of the pitch... <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2107.jpg" ALT="Damn it's steep !"> <BR> <BR>In general, there is still good ski to do there. The trails with snowmaking had a 100% coverage, except some rare spots in few trails. Where there is no snowmaking, it's still possible to ski in the uncrowded lines, but on the most popular ones, it's impossible at few places. So the season is really not near the end, there and I'm sure they'll have 2-3 good additionnal weekends before to close !
">((( <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2104.jpg" ALT="L'Avalanche in great shape !!"> <BR> <BR>I talked of a mega extreme trail. In fact, we certainly talk of a top 5 in Quebec (#4 of my craziest official trails ever taken). It's probably the biggest pitch of the province. It's completely crazy. The pitch is only about 400' high, but it's ± 55 degrees all the length. On summer, it's a huge cliff that is inclined a little bit. When I saw it for the first time, in 1998-99 season, I went to the base lodge right after my run to get a new trail map, cause I was just not believing that they made a trail in a so crazy place. What a surprise to see it was really an official trail ! wow ! It would be impossible to ski there, without snowmaking (except with 30 feet of snowfalls may be lol), so there was still enough artificial snow to ski it today, despite the most rocky place was at the extreme limit. Tomorrow, it won't be possible anymore to ski it this winter, as it's too dangerous to remove our skis for the little zone without snow. Oh, I forgot ... it's a semi-glade in more !!!! <BR> <BR>It's really tough to have a view that shows the steepness of it. This is a not so bad one, but it's behind the trees. I must say under the chairlift, it's just rocks over rocks in a 40 degree zone. So the trail (on right) is really really steeper than under chairlift and 2-3 times higher, too !! <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2105.jpg" ALT="Pins Rouges on right"> <BR> <BR>As you can see, the face shot seems less steep, as the photograph was near the base of the pitch, so it seems less vertical. Nevertheless, it's a damn big pitch !! (the most crazy is that despite the rocky place, it was still open !!) <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2106.jpg" ALT="Frankontour survived to Pins Rouges !!!"> <BR> <BR>Finally, a plunging view from the top of the pitch... <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2107.jpg" ALT="Damn it's steep !"> <BR> <BR>In general, there is still good ski to do there. The trails with snowmaking had a 100% coverage, except some rare spots in few trails. Where there is no snowmaking, it's still possible to ski in the uncrowded lines, but on the most popular ones, it's impossible at few places. So the season is really not near the end, there and I'm sure they'll have 2-3 good additionnal weekends before to close !