Mont Ste Marie - January 22, 2018

I arrived at Mont Ste Marie at 9am just as it was opening. The temperature was about -5C. The day before was like + 5C with spring like conditions and looked pretty busy from the webcam shots. Today was almost the opposite.   Very quiet, pretty much zero lines with fast hard packed conditions. I also discovered a fair amount of crusty icy spots.  Not the best, we need snow, we need lots of snow. The fields below the mountain now have zero snow cover and were full of deer eating the exposed grass.  Mont Ste Marie did manage to have 18 out of their 20 main runs open so they must have been making a lot of snow over the past few weeks. The best runs were Tornade Bas, Serenade, Dustin Cook and Formidable.  Besty was pretty icy and I'm glad my edges were in decent shape.  Overall though you really can't complain, we got a tonne of runs in skiing the 1200ft vertical from 9:30-3:30 with a quick lunch at the bar.  I love it when you can basically ski right on the lift.  Pray for snow and ski on!

A quiet Sunday morning

The Poma lift on Promenade between Cheval Blanc and Vanier

Fields looking bare in the valley below.

This is about as busy as it got.

The ski train that drives you to the Cheval side.

Caroll-Ann needs some snow. It was not open.