Bromont, QC 11/29/2002

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One day, two ski areas. <BR> <BR>I skied the aforementioned few runs on Friday morning at Stoneham, then headed to Montréal. The whole drive, things got snowier and snowier, and I sure got a few looks from the natives by doing 80 on a snow-covered Highway 20 in an Infiniti with Florida plates. <BR> <BR>By 3 pm, I was headed east again, this time on the 10 towards Bromont. Holy Crap, Batman ... that was the worst road condition that I've encountered in years. The wet snow, compacted by traffic, had refrozen into a solid half-inch of nothin' but ice. No salt, no sand, no nuttin'. Doing 40 in traffic, the car started fishtailing on a straight stretch from just a gust from the crosswind. <BR> <BR>I made it to Bromont before darkness had fully set in, and after buying the kid a helmet (something's wrong when Dad has one and kid doesn't), the two of us set about doing laps on Bromont's one open top-to-bottom run. A good 5 to 6 inches of fresh stuff made things a delight. <BR> <BR>Poaching was rampant, and no one seemed to care in the least that it was going on. Many of the closed trails had the lights turned on, an invitation to duck the ropes. My son was bugging me to take him under the ropes, but I had to set a good example ... that is, until I could stand it no longer. <BR> <BR>Even on the closed trails, I hit nothing but fresh. It was more than I had a right to expect on November 29 on a suburban, low-elevation ski hill so close to Montreal. Yee-haa! <BR> <BR>By 8:30 or so, my legs were shot, and so was the snow. More and more people arrived over the course of the evening, such that the narrow, lower part of the one open trail was getting uncomfortably crowded. So we opted to pack it in. <BR> <BR>A nice start to my season, for sure.
 
Oh, an addendum ... I was shocked to awake Saturday morning in St.-Hilaire, between Bromont and Montreal, to open the curtains and see everything melting. It was snowing and 27F when I went to bed, and 38F with an ever-so-light drizzle in the morning. It stayed damp and warm all day in the Montreal area on Saturday, with the occasional rain drop on the windshield, but flurries moved back in overnight Saturday night as the temperature plunged. When I left Montreal around noon today, it was in the mid-teens with a stiff wind. <BR> <BR>I'm therefore sure that things are nice and firm by now.
 
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