Le Massif de Charlevoix: The Day I Finally Skied

On New Years Eve, my partner and I celebrated with a single beer, so we could wake fresh the next day and turn our ski season around. Overnight, a few fresh inches of snow settled on the car.

In the morning, coffee percolated in the kitchen as a flock of evening grosbeaks pecked at a feeder in the backyard of our Airbnb. I’d never seen those magnificent birds before, but I had little patience to enjoy them. As stunning as they were, I hurried getting our gear and ourselves into the car.

Our season had begun slowly and I wasn’t expecting much. Le Massif de Charlevoix usually opens near 100% and a month into the season vast stretches of the mountain remained closed.

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Tremblant: View from The North

With the recent warm and spring’s imminent return my friends and I headed north hoping to extend winter. Luck was with us: we planned our trip far in advance and Tremblant was getting snow.

We booked a mountainside airbnb, a five-minute walk to the Express Gondola. Chip, Alex and I were joined by Blue and his brother as well as Dave and Ally. As we settled in Thursday, snow started falling, setting up a great weekend.

We woke up to an inch of fresh snow Friday and it forecasted to continue throughout the day. After a quick breakfast at a french cafe we met up Dave and Ally. We soon boarded the gondola and headed to the top.

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The Storm Chasin’ Blues

Few of us are true weather nerds, but it seems the availability of immediate and targeted forecasts makes it easy to pretend. I like to get up in the morning and see where it snowed. Even though I work in tech, on most ski days all I want from google is a snow phone number.

More often than not, I’ll pick a place where I like the scene or will be meeting people. I’m not locked in to a multi-mountain pass, and living in Montreal, my options are almost unlimited.

Still, every once in awhile, I do get caught up in the fever of prognostication facilitated by social media, weather apps and NWS bulletins. And so it went this past weekend, when I booked a last-minute airbnb close to the currently dormant Saddleback Mountain.

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