Mont Tremblant, April 14, 2018 - not the spring you expected

Leslie McLaughlin

We arrived Friday evening to the Cap Tremblant, which is a fantastic condo/timeshare resort in the (actual) village, with most units offering a fantastic view of the south side of Tremblant. After a quick trip to the adults only hot tub, we took advantage of the condo kitchen to do make BBQ chicken with homemade Guinness BBQ sauce, and to prepare pizza sauce for Saturday's dinner. The Cap Tremblant units also offer BBQs, but it was far too cold to light one up this time around. This was to be a bit more of a low key trip, since on Saturday we'd be joined by my friend and her nine year old daughter, who are beginner to intermediate level. They ski Cascades frequently so Tremblant is a much more involved experience for them. So I planned to keep things easy Saturday, and then ski Expo on Sunday.

I had promised my friends a spring skiing experience, which usually involves blue skies, warm weather and slush bumps, but such was not to be. It was cold enough to need at least a few layers and a good scarf and goggles. And unfortunately conditions were not great (in fact it sounds like conditions were better at Sommet Sauveur that day!). It was overall pretty scrapey with tolerable coverage on the P'Tit Bonheur (but still easy to go pretty fast comfortably), with the Beauchemin having really thin cover, and Duncan being entirely unbearable and bald as can be. Every skier I saw passing under the chairlift was scraping down that one slowly. Lowell Thomas was closed of course, because of the replacement of its namesake chair. All of this might account for there being absolutely no lineups at the Duncan chair, so that was a plus. Upside: There was a huge and very loud party in the peak lodge, with djs playing something for everyone, and around the mountain there was maple taffy and cotton candy being made! At the end of the day I took Beauvallon back down the mountain, having heard that the Kandahar side was a disaster. It too, was pretty bald and the blowing wind didn't really make it any more fun. We had a nice time, but they definitely didn't ski as much as they would have liked due to the conditions.

We capped off the evening with homemade pizza and some time in the family friendly hot tub at the Cap Tremblant, and as the temps dropped I pondered how I would spend my Sunday. Having already used my Latitude days, I was thinking about skiing elsewhere instead of further dulling my edges.

I didn't take a lot of photos due to it being rather cold, but here are a few!