Oh my winter!
While home to great skiing, Mont-Tremblant offers plenty off-slope activities
It takes a few minutes to get the rotors going, but soon our little bird is lifting off, rising above the snow-laden evergreens and swooping out over the dark waters, tracing the course of the Rivière Diable. Seconds later, we’re high above the 850-metre peak of the resort’s namesake mountain, a few of its 1,164 snow guns fired up and blowing flakes on the slopes, the lake and village even further below us.
Visibly peaceful amongst all the white, a closer inspection through the window of the chopper reveals an almost imperceptible bustle — cars stacking up on the two-lane roads, parking lots filling, little dots of well-bundled patrons browsing along the pedestrian streets. And it’s probably just my imagination, but I think I can feel it, too — the excitement of the official opening weekend party radiating upwards, skiers and snowboarders and all sorts of other winter enthusiasts headed, ultimately, toward this summit deep into the heart of Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains.
I’m here in Mont-Tremblant for just 48 hours, looking for all the fun I can find — without hitting the slopes. Known for its great powder, 269 hectares of skiable terrain and 96 runs, I’m looking for everything else there is to do here in this charming mountain town — all of it just awakening on this first weekend of the winter season.
And that begins in the air — even before I climb into that helicopter. Porter Airlines operates a seasonal, direct flight from Billy Bishop, pulling up near the door of the adorable, log-cabin-themed terminal at the small airport near the Mont-Tremblant village and Station Mont Tremblant resort. After a short flight filled with pre-noon cocktails and increasingly loud chatter about parties and drinks and other après-ski activities, I take a second, before climbing the stairs down onto the white tarmac, to chat with the pilots of Porter flight 555.
Captain Shandra Marr definitely notices the difference on this route. For starters, happy families, friends and couples stealing away for a weekend greatly outnumber dowdy business travellers. “This is a fun one — everyone’s in a good mood,” she says, adding that while landings here can be challenging, especially given the frequent winter weather, they’re rewarding, too. “It’s beautiful on approach. For us up front, we just love the scenery.”
The next day — having gotten a better appreciation of that landscape on a speedy, 20-minute helicopter tour with Heli-Tremblant— I get up close and personal with nature. Richard Lemieux meets me at Tremblant’s Activity Centre in the heart of town and within five minutes, we’ve walked out to the woods. “It’s still here, oui,” he says cheerily, finding the path for his first winter hike of the year — one he will lead almost daily from now till the end of the season.
First, we sit and affix crampons to the bottoms of our boots — equipment that will be replaced by snowshoes once a sufficient base has built up. Striding out with gators on my legs and using the crampons, as instructed, to step surprisingly stably across glare ice, I feel like a Swiss mountain climber as we make our way, always uphill.
Walking along Nansen Creek and winding through the cedars, Lemieux pauses, just for a moment, for a distinctly boreal embrace. “Every day I pass here, I give him a hug, to take his spirit,” he says, clinging to the big trunk of the tree, then turning, with a wry smile, to point to a different tree. “That one over there, he’s quite jealous.”
The incline steepens, commensurately increasing my huffing and puffing, and as we near the top — Lemieux barely breaking a sweat — he tells me about the legends of the area, including the name behind the Rivière Diable. Last century, Lemieux explains, the river was used to raft logs, a very dangerous profession that took the lives of many men; people in the area assumed that the river was cursed by the devil. “We were very Catholic,” Lemieux notes, crossing himself in the process.
Soon enough we arrive at a clearing, where my guide demonstrates how to make a winter fire in the woods. “People are surprised that I can make a fire on the snow,” he says. “The key is to make a floor with the larger limbs, because the snow will kill the flame.”
Once a small bonfire is burning, Lemieux pops out a harmonica, playing a distinctly, traditional Quebecois tune. “I always improvise,” he tells me afterward. “It just depends on how I feel.”
Back in town, I discover that while the season officially starts in late November, most of the locals consider this to be the real opening weekend on the mountain because of the arrival of the first Porter flight and 24h, a fundraiser and festival.
I keep busy, taking the nine-minute gondola ride to the snowy top of Tremblant, shop along the pedestrian streets and try out an indoor escape game at a place called Mission Liberté, something that’s far more difficult (and entertaining) than I had anticipated.
Relaxation is also on the agenda. I spend time at the Fairmont Tremblant’s newly renovated spa, part of the hotel’s massive multimillion dollar makeover, sinking deep in the outdoor hot tub, part of a large complex that includes hot and cold pools as well as a Finnish sauna, and watching the nearby slopes, before getting a treatment for my aching back.
And I eat and drink — plenty. After more than my fair share of fresh air, I settle into a booth at La Diable Microbrasserie with owner Pierre Jasmin, who started the microbrewery 23 years ago when the modern development of Tremblant was just in its infancy. “The village was not at all like it is now,” he says, as we sip a nice wheat beer and dig into some steaming poutine.
It’s hard to picture, with every table in the place packed and a lineup out the door, but Jasmin, who has been skiing here since the 1970s, says things felt a bit shaky in the ’90s, when they were just building the new village modelled on a French Alpine town. “We needed a bit of vision,” he recalls. “You came here and it was all muddy. The whole place was a construction site.”
But as I make my way back to the hotel, all I see now is that village coming alive — the chairlifts full, the benches surrounding the little bonfires around town packed with revellers, the happy pubs and restaurants bustling, everyone looking forward to a long season of ski and snowboard, and everything else, ahead. Tim Johnson was a guest of Tremblant Resort Association, which didn’t read or approve this article.