Author: James Michaud

After apres-ski beers in the sun at the bottom of Mont Edouard yesterday, a cold front moved in and the bottom promptly dropped out. When I got up this morning, it was a brisk -15F.

On our way back to the Quebec City airport, we pulled into Le Massif for some photo ops, and weren’t disappointed. The high temp was only 3F, so a few trails were bullet-proof, but many were top-to-bottom (2,400 verts) soft as could be.

Another cool thing about Le Massif is the trail-name theme — most are old French sea-faring terms.

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Just when we thought that this trip couldn’t get better, the skies cleared for a real off-the-beaten-track gem in the Saguenay Fjord region: Mont Edouard.

It has a nice, sustained pitch, lots of glades, and the best snow of the week. Paydirt.

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Hard to believe our amazing timing on this Quebec visit: a second powder day after two sunny spring days. Mont Grand-Fonds is a 1,300-vert hill that’s similar in size and layout to Massif du Sud.

When we arrived this morning to an empty parking lot, they were reporting 18 inches over the past 24 hours and it continued snowing lightly all day.

Juliet’s legs are dead and wasn’t able to handle the knee-deep snow without her fat skis, so after I lapped a bunch of untracked runs, we spent the rest of the day skiing the softest groomers of the season.

How great is it to go on a destination trip at the end of March — planned several weeks in advance — and nail conditions like this?