At about "oh-dark-thirty" on Saturday, February 20th, five intrepid FSCers (Margarethe Andersen, Shirley Wood, Jim Dow, Bob Myse and yours truly) piled into a single pickup truck, bound for Reagan National Airport on the first leg of a ski adventure to the Great White North. At about the same time, two FSC newbies (Gordon and Beth Till) were on they're way to Richmond International Airport for the same trip, but on a slightly different route. Our destination - Mont Tremblant, Quebec, the premier ski resort of eastern Canada and the Blue Ridge Ski Council's annual Winterfest.

After a brief argument with Air Canada over the definition of "boot bag", we boarded the 6:55AM non-stop flight to Montreal, arriving at 8:30AM. There we found our shuttle bus waiting to take the five of us and 10 Potomac Valley Skiers on a pleasant one and a half hour ride on Canada's equivalent of an "interstate" highway into the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal. We passed several interesting looking ski areas, such as Mont Blanc, along the way, but they paled in comparison to our destination.

We arrived at Mont Tremblant at 11:00AM and proceeded to the checkin lobby. Naturally, most of the condos were still occupied by the previous nights guests. That gave us time to get our bearings. We were met by Francois, who took us on a walking tour of the resort village. He pointed out the many restaurants and specialty shops in the resort, as well as the different condo buildings where different clubs were housed. It turned out that Jim, Bob and I were in one building, while Margarethe, Shirley and the Tills were in another. But the resort is so compact that it was, at most, a one-minute walk between the two condos. Which was about the same walk from our condos to the Flying Mile high-speed quad and the 8 person (suck it up!) gondola.

It had been about 15 years since my last trip to Tremblant. At that time, there was a single Inn and a day lodge, along with some small cottages scattered around the base area. And the mountain, while I remembered it as being a lot of fun, was serviced by old double and triple chairs. WHAT A CHANGE!

Even though I had read about the huge development that had taken place there, I was still surprised by all that's available now. The new resort at the base of the mountain is a pedestrian's dream. Condos, shops, restaurants and the main lifts up the mountain surround the central plaza. The architecture evokes the impression of a European alpine village. From the plaza, small cobblestone "streets" lead down toward Mirror Lake, through an area called "Old Tremblant". The developers didn't destroy the old buildings as they improved the base facilities. They relocated most of them to Old Tremblant. The Inn now houses a bar, conference facilities and offices. The old day lodge is now the ski school headquarters. And many of the old cottages are now shops, restaurants or bars. It's really an impressive mix of old and new.

While we were getting familiar with the resort, the Tills were sharing a plane and bus ride with the Richmond Ski Club, led by the infamous Maynard Dalton. (Maynard's extroverted personality can be a bit overwhelming to the uninitiated.) They arrived just before dinner; in fact our first meeting was in the Bullseye Saloon and Grill, one of the many restaurants available in the resort.

Well, I see I'm about out of time, so I won't say too much about the skiing, except that it was great, but cold! The new trails, lifts and on-mountain facilities are outstanding. Add in Tremblant's huge snowmaking system and EVERYTHING was open for business. We managed to talk (or trick, actually) Shirley into skiing some black diamonds at the end of the week. Margarethe decided that skiing is for the old fogies, and took up snowboarding. But we all came home with more memories than I can squeeze into these few pages.

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