Mont Gleason - March 19, 2017

Wow what a beautiful day! Today's plan was Mont Gleason. This mountain is located in the town of Warwick about 1 hour from Sherbrooke. I left this morning at 7:30 to be there early enough for decent parking and to beat the rush to get some early runs in. Gleason has 5 lifts in all, 1 fixed grip Quad, 1 double chair, 2 t-bars serving 20 trails, and a Magic Carpet for the learning zone for beginners. I met up with a friend of mine with whom I skied with at Whaleback a month ago. We hit the Quad lift a few minutes before opening at 9:00. This is usually the first lift to open and the double follows soon after usually by 10:30, but today was different. We expected this to be a busy day with the great weather and with the snow we received lately. The double chair opened early in anticipation of a large crowd. The wait at first was short and sweet but by 10:00 it got busy. Even both t-bars were pressed into service by around 10:30 or so. Of the times previous that I had skied here, the t-bars were not in operation. They were even busy and had a fairly decent crowd riding.

The wait in line for the Quad at this point was about 10 minutes, so we decided to hit the singles line. That worked out well as we waited no more than 5 minutes. The first trails skied were the MRC Arthabaska, Ling, and Cascades. The coverage was fantastic, groomed packed powder over a nice firm yet forgiving base. All trails were open but the glades had coverage but nothing firm underneath and the chances of hitting something were fairly high so we stayed out.

The Cascades Trail:

We then moved over to the Double Chair for a few rides and skied a bit on that side of the mountain, where there a two snow parks with modules set up. One upper section and another lower section.

The Ling: Middle section and the Upper section.

A nice little feature at Gleason is their summit chalet where one can go in an warm up to a nice cozy fire or to have a bite to eat. I have had lunch here a few times in the past and food has been really good.

As the day progressed it warmed up nicely to a few degrees above Zero. Warm enough to the point where I removed my head and neck warmer and opened the vents in my helmet. The conditions held up really well and softened up a little, but not to the point where it turns to mashed potatoes that we usually see for spring skiing. It did bump up a bit on some trails but they were nice and soft. We had a marathon day skiing for 6 hours no breaks and finished our day at 3:00. I have to say this was one of the best ski days I have had in a long time. When we departed afterwards, the lines at both chairlifts were still going strong. Normally on Sunday, the lifts close at 4 pm. When we were in the chalet getting ready to leave, there were notices posted that they had extended the day to 4:30. By the looks of the number of people here today, this was probably one of their best days of the year. This was a great decision to come here today.

Here are some more scenes from the day: