Sutton, QC, 12/7 to 12/10

[Max]

I benefited from a week-long break in my exam period to stay 4 days at Sutton, and it was worth it. <BR> <BR>I was on my skis at 8:30 Saturday to benefit from the season opening of eastern -steeper- section of the resort, but conditions weren't as nice as I'd expected. They had groomed/rolled (almost) everything, and snow wasn't really soft, but there was some powder to be found in certain trails. I only had the chance to do one run off chair #4 (the only chairlift opened in eastern section), when they decided to install a safety bar on a chair (Come on, they had 7 months to install it, why did they wait until opening day?). After 15 minutes of waiting, they reopened the chair, and I hiked (5 min) to the sector of chair #7, which was not operating. Conditions were much better on that side, and it didn't take long for people to start going there. <BR> <BR>But more chairlift trouble was under way. <BR> <BR>Around 10:30, we could smell a slight burning odor at the bottom of chair #4, and loud noises came out of the motor room of the lift. They suceeded at evacuating everyone before the motor stoped agonizing. Obviously, 7 months of summer was definetly too short to make sure everything was ok. What's funny is that chair #4 had also broken down on its opening day last year, too. I guess history can't stop repeating itself. <BR> <BR>So they opened chair #5 (a double) 30 minutes later, and skiing resumed on that side of the mountain. They won't be able to open #4 (a FG quad) for a bit of time, as they have to send the motor to be repaired. #5 is a bit difficult to get to when #4 is closed and its capacity is half that of #4, so there started to be long lines at the bottom. <BR> <BR>That didn't stop me from enjoying ski on Sunday. Though it was more crowded, 6" of new snow changed conditions radically. Along with friends, I sampled the backside of the mountain by going on Fantaisie: it was awesome! Deep, untracked snow awaited us, and we could hardly believe that we were there on Dec 8! Out-of-bounds terrain was also nice, but the risks of half-covered obstacles calmed our adventurous spirits. <BR> <BR>On Monday, it was the freezing air that calmed me. In the morning, there were more employees than skiers on the mountain, and the cold made everybody feel uncomfortable (-15F, anyone?). Temps got higher in the afternoon and on Tuesday. On these two days, I enjoyed better the groomed man-made snow, as the natural snow had kind of frozen into place. Only 3 chairs were operating, but all trails were still open. It was nice to have room to practice turns and high speeds without having to worry for other skiers. <BR> <BR>Yep, these 4 days were much better than studying!