La Réserve, QC 02/16/12

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:


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:




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):


Just like Magic, La Réserve's upper mountain has some nice steep pitches and a bunch of gorgeous glades.






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:


A great day that would have only been better with some fresh snow to allow me to ski the steeper stuff:

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:


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:



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.