Huge small resort or tiny big resort? You decide it
Written: Jan 03 '05 (Updated Jan 05 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Charming, reliable snow making, good chairlifts, excellent gondola
Cons: Cold, icy runs, expert terrain could be closed, lifts close early, kind of expensive
The Bottom Line: A resort to visit more for its charm than its skiing. Ice is the major drawback. Skiing on ice makes better skiers though!
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| icio's Full Review: Tremblant |
I visited some friends in Montreal during Christmas and on December 26th, after I asked about Mont Tremblant, they decided that they were going to take me there. I did not oppose and in about 1h 30 minutes we were there. The village is truly charming with sort of a Swiss look. This beauty is better revealed when one takes the short ride on the open gondola (they call it cabriolet) from the square at street level to the true base of the "mountain". Then, all the hotels (kind of upscale in look, comfort, and price), small boutiques, little cafes are clearly visible. And, then, one also gets to see the crowd. It is not like NY during the rush hours, but a little busier than one would like it to be to enjoy the slopes without a market place feeling. I was told that locals from Montreal and surroundings pretty much avoid this place to go elsewhere. Prices are not cheap and gone are the days when the US dollars could give a US resident an extra 40% lift in value. Hopefully those days will come back, but right now it is only 20% extra value that you can depend on and given the prices, one had better not planning on big saves by coming here.
Cafes are as charming as you can desire but also so tiny that they are uncomfortable and that is not just my opinion.
A friend of mine lost his scone in the crowd!
My friends then told me about the detail later, but I did not listen and found out the truth the hard way as well.
Hotels are plentiful and small and most of the time on the upscale side, the most luxurious being the 5-star Le Westin (http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/search/hotel_detail.html?propertyID=1197) and the Fairmont Chateau .(http://www.fairmont.com/tremblant/).
I did not stay at any hotel, but in general they command big $$ (either Canadian or US), during the Xmas Season at least, unless you get here on a package. There are relatively inexpensive all-inclusive packages from Europe, in particular.
The are two options when buying a lift ticket: a full day ticket and an half-day ticket (you can only buy it after 12pm) which can save you some money, about $10.00 Canadian.
The normal tickets for adults for a full day of skiing is $55.00 + tax. An extra $3.00 is assessed on adult tickets during Xmas (this year it was 12/25/04-1/2/05). Kind of pricey for a resort of this size and considering that they close fairly early.
The ride with the cabriolet (an open gondola) takes you to the base of the mountain where you can take the real gondola. The line for the gondola moves fairly fast and even during the major holidays I was told that one never gets to wait for more than 10 minutes. In my own experience, I never had to wait longer than 5 minutes.
The gondola takes skiers to the top of Mont Tremblant, usually fairly busy as it is the access point to both the North and the South sides. Common sense would suggest that the North side is colder than the South one, but this is not necessarily the case if one factors in the wind chill. During my staying at Mont Tremblant it was actually more pleasant to ski the North side as there was a strong wind coming in from the South.
At the top the feeling is similar to that one experiences at major resorts in the Rockies or in the Alps of Europe. It is busy and can intimidate someone, but definitely a chance to experience a big mountain feeling.
Normally, those who read me before know that I take the task of describing the slopes very seriously and have a tendency to describe resorts run-by-run. However, I will not do that in this case although I skied a good 80-85% of the runs. I can tell you that overall the difficulty level is a little bit inflated when compared to big resorts. Green circles are honest green. Blue squares are OK, albeit on the easy side with just a few truly deserving the ranking. Black diamond are definitely easy for the most part. At one point I was on a black run and I was wondering where the run was. Mont Tremblant lists also a few double black diamond runs. I tried a couple, the others were closed due to the icy conditions. Vertige is nice: the head wall at the beginning is remarkably steep, and is going to make more than one skier feel the butterflies in his/her stomach, but it is wide, and after the headwall has been skied (100 yards or less) the remaining is single black diamond terrain at most which turns out to be part of the other run designated as double black, Zig-Zag. Many runs seem to intersect at Mont Tremblant and that can create a little confusion with names. Not a big deal though.
I think I also skied Brass-Camarade but the run is reported as a glade and the one I skied next to the signal was not. Steep enough (serious black run) but only difficult because of the icy conditions. Ice can be the element that could change the difficulty level in a run. An icy blue could cause you to become a little black if you don't give it enough credit.
Among the black runs Kandahar is a good challenge, but it is often closed because of racing or training.
Blue cruisers are adequate, however, they tend to get icy fast and once they get icy the fun is not so much fun anymore for many a skier. I got some extra fun by skiing either the very left or right side of these runs, but to avoid the ice you cannot really cruise and need to get in aggressive short-radius turns which will make you tired fast.
Snow-making is definitely excellent and a plus, but they keep making snow even while people are skiing. This is annoying, but it also means that the central part of most runs are going to be icy all the time and huge piles of pseudo fresh snow will form instead on the sides. I did not see bumps during my visit there. Not enough snow I am afraid to say.
Places to eat are the Chalet de Voyagers on the South Side, La Fourchette Du Diable on the North Side, and Crepes Bretonne at the top of the Mountain. Higher scale restaurants are available at Place St. Bernard at the base of the South Side.
I did not take lesson from the Ski School as I am an instructor myself. Quick looks at the lessons on the mountain did not reveal any innovative teaching methods but rather a classical approach. I did not really pay attention to the progression of the students involved, though.
Major concern was the very icy state of the runs. I could handle it, nevertheless ice skiing is not so enjoyable as skiing on fluffly stuff out West. But, this is Eastern skiing and this is what one gets. Locals told me that I should have headed to Le Massif for that is, according to them, epic skiing. This, however, would have added probably 2 hours each way to my trip from Montreal and I decided against.
All in all, I had fun, although the ice and the several closed runs definitely deprived me of a chance to ski the more challenging terrain. The terrain park, on the contrary, made a very good impression on me: nice and well-kept and skiers and boarders there seem to know what they are doing. It is not my bread, but if it is yours I think you are going to be happy here.
Chairlifts closed very early: 3:30pm at least during the days I was there. I am sure they will stay open longer as daylight increases.
Recommended:
Yes
Level of Experience Needed: All
Best Time to Visit: February
Best Suited For: Families
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Epinions.com ID:
icio
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Location: Thousand Oaks, CA
Reviews written: 49
Trusted by: 6 members
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