Le Massif de Charlevoix, QC 03/26/10

Following the most perfect spring/winter combo yesterday, the weather did an about-face overnight, and we awoke to clear skies and -15F.

We spent the night at Maison de Vébron -- a very pleasant small hotel at the foot of Mont Edouard with a cool European feature: a common kitchen, dining room, living room, and lounge that allow guests to mingle.


We ate an excellent dinner last night from a new épicerie a couple hundred yards away, Au Comptoir d'Edouard, where we also bought cranberry- and blueberry-based products for ourselves and foie gras and duck paté for our carnivore friends. Owner/Head Chef Gilles Hamel was great at explaining where everything came from (100% local) and how it was made:


We hit the road and headed east to the St. Lawrence. During the warm weather, beluga whale tours are a big attraction around here:


There was only enough time for a three-hour spin at Le Massif, but this time, we were able to take in the great river views. While the brutal flash-freeze hardened some of the runs into concrete (the high temp at the summit was 3F), others were top-to-bottom velvet:












We raced back to the Quebec City airport to find our flight delayed by 90 minutes due to wind issues in Newark, so we got in line and did as any Canadian would under the circumstances:

Great series of trip reports Mr. Deluxe, very detailed and informative. I have been thinking about visiting the Charlevoix region and now I think I will do some planning for family trip next winter. From where we are in S. Ontario it is a long haul, and at least 3-4 hours farther than Tremblant where we have been a few times. But, that combination of terrain, scenery, snow fall, and thin crowds looks too good to ignore any longer. Shanks
p.s. be careful with Tim's coffee...very addictive stuff, must be the nicotine that they add to it (fact or fiction, who knows?)

Thanks!

What is the drive time for you to Charlevoix? From where I live, it's well more than 10 hours, and since I only had a week of vacation, I jettisoned the idea of going by car. Luckily, Continental has three nonstop flights a day to Quebec City from an airport only 15 minutes from my house, so that made my decision easy.

longshanks":2r9v1pxk said:

now I think I will do some planning for family trip next winter.

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If you're planning a destination trip from the East Coast, going west to the Rockies or east to the Alps (if money is less of an object) are always the obvious choices. That said, my Eastern Townships and northern Quebec vacations this season were so good on a variety of levels (and my First Tracks reports certainly bear that out), I'd encourage people to give La Belle Province a try on a future outing. The skiing was as fun as Vermont's better mountains, conditions were very good to great, the scenery was often stunning, and the food/drink/cultural experience angle was really unique for us Yanks. Sorry for sounding like the tourism bureau, but this trip was pure win (and I scored lots of points with the wife -- to be cashed in over the next few weekends).
:mrgreen:

If you are driving from Southern Ontario , it would be a 4 hour drive after Montreal to the Massif( stay on the 40 to the 138 North Shore ) and 6 hours from Montreal to Edouard . Never skied at Edouard but guys tell me great place for powder . Great views from the North Shore as you can view the ocean container ships heading up river to Montreal passing through the ice flows.

You're Most welcome, well as Anthony says it is an additional 4 hrs as I am near London ON and Tremblant is about 9 with stops. 13 would be about critical mass for everyone and blows a day on both ends. Not sure the females in the family would enjoy the travel, me and the lads no problem if is there is snow and lifts involved. With 5, flights to Que are out and driving is the only way it makes sense. If I'm flying anywhere its to Calgary and into the Interior I go and have done so many times most recently with my sons at Christmas. The Alps are on my list, but likely a trip to take with Ski Buds as I can't see taking the team to Europe.

Damn, I just Mapquested London, Ontario... you're really in the Bermuda Triangle for skiing. To fly anywhere, do you leave from London or drive two hours to Toronto or Detroit? I see why you wouldn't make that drive.

jamesdeluxe":1n4j8pjs said:

Damn, I just Mapquested London, Ontario... you're really in the Bermuda Triangle for skiing. To fly anywhere, do you leave from London or drive two hours to Toronto or Detroit? I see why you wouldn't make that drive.

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Bermuda Triangle indeed...We do have two local ski hills...Boler Mountain (about 110' of sreaming vert) which is on the west side of London and about 30m minutes drive from home. We used to live 5 minutes from there and it was an OK place for the kids to take their first turns. A top to bottom run is about 30 seconds. I remember a 30 cm Powder day there a few years back...I did laps for about an hour and got bored.Boler has a terrain park full of park rats. The other is Cobble Hills (more aptly named) boasting around 125' of vert and only about 15 minutes away. Needless to say, I don't spend any of my yearly ski budget locally. Growing up I remember tobogganing on bigger hills than what is around here.

Thankfully we can fly out of London Int. Airport (12 min from my place) on West Jet or Air Canada and be in Calgary in 4 hours and ski either Castle, Sunshine, Lake Louse or even Kicking Horse on the same day. Flying out of Hamilton is another option to avoid Toronto. If I was flying anywhere Stateside, I would fly out of Detroit which is about 2.5 hrs from here if the Border at Sarnia/Port Huron is good.

13 would be about critical mass for everyone

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That would be my drive home from Sun Valley yesterday. Well, it would have been if not on Sunday night. :evil: Vegas to L.A. Sunday afternoon/evening is probably worse than I-70 to Denver. A normal 4+ hour drive can turn into 7+.

longshanks has it right. If you have to pay airfare to ski in the East, don't do it unless you feel very lucky.

Tony Crocker":2vzfu8fs said:

longshanks has it right. If you have to pay airfare to ski in the East, don't do it unless you feel very lucky.

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If nine hours to Tremblant is the best non-flying option, I'd do the same thing as Longshanks. A more interesting question is for someone from my part of the woods, who has the choice of flying five hours to the Rockies or to Quebec City or Montreal in 60-75 minutes. In two separate trips to Canada this winter, both planned months in advance, I didn't get one remotely bad day out of ten on snow (three legit powder days), plus all the cultural extras. Was I "very lucky" or are the odds for destination trips not as bad as Crocker would have us believe?

Here's a story for the guy from London... while I was at the Manoir Victoria in Quebec City, Juliet and I were enjoying a stunning breakfast buffet with everything imaginable and then some. In walk these two blokes from Toronto who survey the spectacular piles of cheese, eggs, french toast, cakes, carved meats, fruit, croissants, and crepes, and decide that what they really want is BACK BACON. As someone who grew up with SCTV's Bob and Doug MacKenzie, I have an idea of what it is, but have never tried it because I don't eat meat. Regardless, it was fascinating watching this guy trying to explain to a French-Canadian waiter what back bacon is. Although the waiter spoke decent English, he was visibly puzzled, as was the waitress who joined them. After about five minutes followed by a discussion with the chef, they had to tell him that it was no dice.

James ... I'd suggest your scorage in QC was not total luck.

I defer to Jason. But a northward retreating storm track at this time of year makes sense.

Jason actually called it on March 12, in his Harvey Road weather entry:

http://harvey44.blogspot.com/2010/03/we ... rch-8.html

As you know I only figured out that you flew to QC (vs drove) in the last few days. Hard to believe you didn't get more FTO grief for it! :wink:

Way to go. A trip you will never forget.

Harvey44":3lies9wo said:

Hard to believe you didn't get more FTO grief for it!

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Grief for what? For flying to a destination trip in Quebec rather than heading out west for the thousandth time? IMHO, you're rolling the dice no matter where you go, and even if the worst-case weather scenario happens (whose incidence I'm arguing is overstated by Crocker and his ilk), you'll still be eating and drinking incredibly well, in a different culture (movies, theatre, books, sports, people with different points of view), with lots of off-mountain diversions -- to say nothing of the aforementioned cute Québecoises.

Which is not to say that Longshanks should follow my advice. From the very odd location that he calls home, there's very little upside to driving east. I'd always fly to Calgary.

I think Nikki would prefer Quebec to Colorado or Utah. I think it would be worthwhile to do that trip. I think I would prefer the terrain out west albeit I've never skied quebec. Based on how I ate out west this last trip (there will be a post sometime in the next 24 hours) I would imagine the food is better in Quebec.

jamesdeluxe":144hacdw said:

Grief for what?

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I guess I thought it was customary. Like hazing.

Some of you will recall that I attended the NASJA meeting in Charlevoix March 19-23, 2003.

you'll still be eating and drinking incredibly well

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No question about that, and I also enjoyed the half-day Quebec City tour. But the skiing was not worth it if paying full air/lodging prices to get there. Rain and fog at Le Massif and heavy, late spring-type conditions at Grands-Fonds and the south side of Ste. Anne. Only Stoneham had good snow, and the scale and terrain there are similar to Big Bear, as noted at the time. The steeper runs at Ste. Anne already had marginal snow cover in mid-March, which james mentioned this time also. Admin told me before I went back there that the Vermont skiing would be better and he was absolutely right about that. Stowe and MRG also had the late spring snow, but they are steeper mountains that ski much better in those conditions. Neither my 7 days nor james' 10 are remotely close enough to being valid sample sizes. But we've been over this ground before. Rain incidence in Quebec ski areas is not that different from northern New England, with the higher latitude of the former offsetting the higher altitude of the latter. Yes, james was lucky IMHO, especially for this late in the season. Massif and Ste. Anne have much more south than north exposure, probably more comfortable mid-season but a definite liability in spring.

Tony, there was a huge difference in natural snow between Mont Sainte-Anne and further north at Le Massif/Grand-Fonds. Everyone was talking about it. But as mentioned, MSA's north-facing backside, which has a decent amount of terrain, has plenty to make it through most of April.

According to the locals I spoke with, this was an extremely odd year throughout the province. Anthony, Patrick, and crew can add details, but according to the stories I heard from MSA, there weren't many base-killing thaws, just a general lack of snow (they were stunned to hear about the Catskills' 280-cm storm at the end of Feb). Walking through a snowless Quebec City in mid-March was an odd experience, that's for certain.

Quebec City had a solid snowpack in March 2003, much more than in the valleys of Vermont. There were also substantial ice floes in the St. Lawrence River, plus the ice climbing at Montmorency Falls.

This year the Christmas rain event did turn to snow when it reached the Quebec City region.

I just compiled end of March snow data, and the Northeast snow totals for the month are exceptionally low. No one in Vermont got as much as a foot of snow, and Le Massif's 26 inches is the highest I have anywhere in the Northeast. So james' trip was lucky indeed. Trail counts are coming down now too, generally in the 65-85% range but higher than last year at this time.