Mont Tremblant - April 16-17 2016

I decided to take advantage of the last weekend promo at Tremblant.  50 loonie lift tickets (they don't mention the 10 loonie tax – you need to pay for that free health care eh) and Kids ski free.  Got back Friday night from a business trip flying into BTV and had my wife meet me in Plattsburgh.  Got there about 10.  Its a pretty easy drive but its much nicer in day light coming home.  We were astounded by how many ski areas there on between Montreal and Tremblant.

I used some SPG points to stay free at the Westin and we were upgraded to a huge 2 bedroom suite based on my Plat status.  Gunny J and his son came over and had a beer in our living room Saturday night.  The Westin was in a great location about 200 yards from the lifts and had a good breakfast buffet.  The beds are very comfy.  The village was nice to walk around and we had a good meal at both the Westin and Le Diable Microbrassier a brew pub.  The lamb burger was really good.  My son liked the maple ice cream at the little shop in the village as well.





Due to the promo they were running you could not buy the kids ticket on line or at your hotel.  Gunny told me he got in line at 8 and while the windows were supposed to be open no one showed up until about 8:20.  We waited over a half hour to buy our lift tickets.  Crazy bad management on this one.  They were totally unprepared.  Some guy with a radio showed up and until I asked him if they would sell a 2 day they weren't doing it.  Glad I asked him.  They seemed to be totally caught off guard by how many people showed up and only had the staff to run 4 lifts.  The lines were the worst I have ever waited in averaging 20 mins in the main section and maybe 10-15 mins in the singles lines.  They also barely had any food to sell on mountain as they hadn't planned to be open.
 
The skiing was good on Saturday but it was very crowded and the mountain lay out is kind of goofy as there are huge flat spots and run outs.  Its sort of Gore like on the North side with a mid mt hump that is only accessed with one lift and another that runs to the summit but with a long flat run out.  Some of the blacks are a joke - they have pitches that are less steep than the Borreen Headwall.  The best skiing was on off the Expo Express where they had some legit blacks with nice spring bumps.  This probably had the shorter of the lift lines but it was a shorter run as well.  we skied the North side in the morning and then switched to the South Side in the afternoon.  The Gondi was not running all weekend so there is really no reason to go down to the bottom so we didn't.  It was probably around low fifties at the top temp wise on Saturday and 60 on Sunday.



Off the TGV lift there are some nice cruisers they call blacks but pitch wise these are less steep than Wilmington Trail and not close to Victoria's pitch.  There are 3 nice legit black bump runs - Zig Zag and Vertige were the best of them. We skipped lunch and skied straight thru to about 2:30 Saturday and then had lunch in the village.





Sunday was much less crowded with the longest lift line maybe 5 mins.    We skied the Expo section again Sunday Morning and found a blade called Buzz that was short but fun.  






They also opened up another lift after probably getting hundreds of complaints on Saturday.  We found the older school trails in the Lowell Thomas pod to be really fun and we spent a big chunk of Sunday lapping them.  This has a fixed grip triple that they keep cranked up and you stay high so it was less slushy.  There were some good glades and narrow natural snow bump trails.  Banzi we skied repeatedly.  



We then flipped over the bumps on the South and finished the day on a high speed cruiser to the bottom.  Our plan was to hammer runs and eat lunch on the way home.  We the high speed lifts and low crowds Sunday my legs were toast by 1 and the slush was really starting to get wet we decided to call it.  My son skied it high speed nonstop and was waiting for me for 5 mins while I enjoyed a more leisurely pace on my final run of the season.  I skied more bumps this weekend than I did the rest of the year combined and we had a great final day on the slopes.  I'm really glad we did the father son road trip and I'm now content for it to be over and play some golf.  

How do they have so much snow ?

We had hear about the deal and had contemplated heading that way - though we are thinking - maybe it is time for us to save for next year mode.  

Sorry to hear that management wasn't ready to deal with the crowds. I guess since it was like 75 degrees F - they were like - who wants to go skiing.

The mountain looks pretty though, we have heard similar things about the mountain and its terrain not being very challenging.  It looks good to me though.

Nice report and photos. Tell your boy to smile - he is lucky to have a dad to take him on fun ski adventures.

Skiray wrote

How do they have so much snow ?

We had hear about the deal and had contemplated heading that way - though we are thinking - maybe it is time for us to save for next year mode.  

Sorry to hear that management wasn't ready to deal with the crowds. I guess since it was like 75 degrees F - they were like - who wants to go skiing.

The mountain looks pretty though, we have heard similar things about the mountain and its terrain not being very challenging.  It looks good to me though.

Tremblant stayed above the major rain events we had all season.  They ended up at 200 inches roughly double what WF got.  Locals I rode the lift with said that they got a big dump about 3 weeks ago.  Snow in the woods I would say averaged 2-3 feet still.  

I guess comparing pitch with WF is never going to net a positive comparison with very few exceptions.  They did have some trails with good pitch for around 600-700 vert feet or so which is pretty common elsewhere.  Pretty much anything that was double black was a decent black at Whiteface.  Their single blacks where more likely our upper mt blues.

The Edge lift pod looked intriguing and had some really nice glades we could see from the Lowell Lift but they closed that due to not wanting to run another lift.

Based on what I saw I would say they easily could be open for another 2-3 weeks particularly if they just operated the North side and ran the Gondi to get you there from the Village and then downloaded.  They claim they are not going to open again this season though.

The Edge is sort of like Gore's Burnt Ridge in that there is mostly tree skiing.  It has only one trail and a few glades off of it.  There is also a connector trail back to the main mountain.  The tree skiing there has got to be great when they've got the snow, but they were basically unskiable when I was there because they thawed out and froze over.

My guess is that the Versant Soleil was closed this weekend as well.  It has some pretty nice cruisers, but not sustained steeps.  Gets lots of sun as it faces due south.  

  We were also there at the Blant  last weekend. Two skiers, two non skiers .Stay three nights in the village. Non skiers, my wife her sister hiked and shopped  and stayed well entertained during their stay. Plenty of choices for a slow relaxing lunch and dinner and cocktails all over the village.
  We were blessed with two perfect blue bird spring skiing days with plenty of snow everywhere. Saw more natural snow still left around then I saw all year in PA. Canadians are known for their world cup mogul skiers and they have lots of moguls at Tremblant. I consider my son an expert mogul skier and with his legs of steel he bashed Saturday and Sunday to last chair. Moguls were hard to find in the Winter of 15/16 so he got his fill this trip.
  What Tremblant lacks is steep sustaining pitch and the North trails are fun , but the flat run out between the top and bottom section of north is killer in the slow Spring snow. Skied all sections of the mountain hitting every chair, preferred  the South side.
.
  Thanks to the ADK Jeff and his family. without that Tremblant family trip report my family trip never would have happened. Thanks Coach and Zach for the hospitality and thanks Harv for the NY ski blog, your making life better.

Gunny J wrote

the flat run out between the top and bottom section of north is killer in the slow Spring snow.

I can see how that could be a drag in spring conditions.

Gunny J wrote

Thanks to the ADK Jeff and his family. without that Tremblant family trip report my family trip never would have happened.

Glad you had a great trip!  Wish we could have come up.  

Agree with Gunny.  Jeff's TR get me thinking about ditching my traditional Jay trip with my son for Tremblant.  That and the promo they ran made this a very inexpensive weekend.

I think Tremblant is much better than Jay Peak.  Not only is is like twice the size, but the lifts actually run instead of constantly stopping and starting.  And the owners at Tremblant aren't scam artists.

snoloco wrote

I think Tremblant is much better than Jay Peak.  

Harv, can we have a "stirring the pot" smiley?
Let's just say they're both nice places to ski.

Sno you know better than anyone that with all that boilerplate they had to do something to keep the place going.

Looks great Coach. Really nice photos.

If its a good snow year and the trees are in play I'm picking Jay over Tremblant every time.  The crowd aspect at Tremblant is a big concern if I was going to be skiing here on a weekend and those lift lines were way worse than I experienced at Jay last Easter.  I think Jay has better expert skiing as long as the trees are in play.  If not then Tremblant would be about even if its a bump day.   If its a HP groomer day then probably Tremblant would be better just for the size.  I would like to ski Tremblant on a mid week mid winter day with all those high speed lifts you could ski yourself silly.  I would like to ski the Edge pod when its trees are in play.

Tremblant is better for intermediates which Sno is so it makes sense he choses them.

Jay is about an hour closer to me than Tremblant but with the exchange rate the value was good.

when it comes down to it I think Tremblant has the potential to be consistently good but Jay has the potential to have one of those OMG days.  

snoloco wrote

I think Tremblant is much better than Jay Peak.

I wish there were more people up that way with that misguided view

my new iphone takes much better photos than my old one

skimore wrote

snoloco wrote

I think Tremblant is much better than Jay Peak.

I wish there were more people up that way with that misguided view

Hopefully Ski Magazine will keep printing Best Of lists that consistently echo Snoloco's POV.

Glad you had a great time. Buzz was one of our favorites.

It was an easier drive than I expected but I did time both drives to avoid Montreal rush hours.  Gunny was going to drive home thru Montreal on Monday morning and I talked him out of that.  Montreal traffic rivals NYC and LA.  I've never figured out why but it's always terrible when I'm up there for work.

  Drove back home  thru Ottawa around 7 hrs. Wanted to go home thru Adirondacks but could not afford a Montreal delay. Son had a baseball game.  I never really rate what mountains are better than others I like to try them all. So far two ski areas I will never visit again, all the rest I would go back.

Coach Z wrote

It was an easier drive than I expected but I did time both drives to avoid Montreal rush hours.  Gunny was going to drive home thru Montreal on Monday morning and I talked him out of that.  Montreal traffic rivals NYC and LA.  I've never figured out why but it's always terrible when I'm up there for work.

Wow, you've never been to NYC or LA.

There's a lot of places that Z has never been, yet has hard set opinions on.