Tremblant has always been a place I’ve fancied visiting. Tucked in the beautiful Laurentian mountains overlooking a frozen lake of the same name, Tremblant is 90 minutes north of Montreal. But apart from some frigid early cold, I doubt we could’ve picked a better day to have a first time exploration.
A deep blue sky is a deceptively alluring thing until you see a -17C sign at the top, and then step out from behind the lodge into a biting southerly wind. We managed 4 runs on the south face, saved by the sheltered gondola ride back up, before retreating for a steaming hot coffee up top. These runs included some delightful groomers, all with steep pitches that were easy to sink an edge into. Even a low-ish angle narrow bump run, Ryan Bas, skied well apart from one hidden iceberg, a frozen stream I suspect, lurking behind some big bump ruts.
After a caffeine-fueled warm up, we figured the Versant Soleil might offer some additional warmth and slightly less head-on, frostbite inducing wind. Here we found more excellent groomers and well covered glades that offered seriously hootable turns. Bon Vieux Temps kept dragging me back like a Siren call, its soft snow, evenly spaced bumps and well spaced trees making for great fun lines.
For the last two hours we headed to the north side, where probably the best advanced terrain lay. Big, bad ass bumps lined the sides of runs and formed killer lines under the chairs. Tree runs like Buzz and Boiling Kettle added steepness to the ingredients missing from the glades we’d skied earlier, and the winchcat groomed Expo and Cossak held mostly good snow, laced with the occasional slab of east coast hardpack to make sure you didn’t relax too much on the way down.
We were having such a good time, ‘lift closing’ signs scuppered our on plans to explore the Versant Edge. That’ll have to wait to next time. With a typically attractive Intrawest-style base village, fast lifts, good vertical, and on this evidence at least, better snow cover than Vermont and New York, I could be persuaded to spend quite a few days here.
9600m vert
Season Totals: 26 days, 213,000m vert
2 powder days
Pacific Northwest Ski blog (and a few other places!) 
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