Sommet Saint-Sauveur - April 27, 28 and 29!

Leslie McLaughlin

Three trip reports rolled into one! Pics to follow since I have yet to download from my phone, but I didn't want this trip report to sit too long!

I was delighted to learn that Sommet Sauveur planned to open last Friday, given the weather was supposed to be full sun and +16 or so. I made it up to the mountain by 2:30pm, and met up with some friends around 3 - they had arrived a bit earlier and we eventually synced up. We skied every open run accessible by the Atomic lift, so, Epervier, Tom Barbeau, Red Bird, Jay, Cote 70 Est, Cote 70 Ouest, and Nordic. The Cote 71 lift wasn't running and the highest access point to La Plagne was closed, but truly you could take the time to hike over as all of these hills were still fully covered last Friday. In fact most of Avila appeared to be entirely covered as well, but I'm sure budget considerations played a factor in those lifts not being open. That said there was no line to speak of and so it was pretty easy to do continuous runs. On Friday, there were a few spots starting to show on Epervier, and its bottom and the bottom or Red Bird were getting pretty dirty and sloppy. As it was pretty warm, there were lots of sections that were a little slow, definitely a little fresh wax would have helped things. I'd waxed 2 or 3 weeks before (whatever the date I went to Jay) but even still things were a bit sluggish at points. the 70 Ouest bottom of course is covered now in perfectly aligned bumps, and there were a few ponds you could easily ride through next to the Atomic chair. It was an absolutely perfect afternoon!

On Saturday, the forecast was cloudy with some rain. Typically Sauveur closes in the rain, but it happened the park event at the base was happening, so they posted that they were in fact going to be open til 5pm! I headed up for 3pm, intending to mostly ski and then do the last run on my board. On Saturday, since it had cooled down a bit and rained, I expected things to be slushier, but in fact, they were actually as good if not better than Friday - the cool air had made things slick again, so no sluggish moments near the base or in spots where the angle of the sun hits the hill just the right (or wrong?) way! It had been raining a bit on my drive up, but as I rolled into the parking lot, the sun came out and continued playing peekaboo through the afternoon. In the end I stayed on my skis and did all the open runs, since I didn't want to waste time switching to my board. Saturday turned out to be a great day! My snowboarding counterpart from the previous day spent her afternoon at Sutton and said conditions were still fantastic there! We intend to hit that this weekend.

Finally, Sunday. You can't win em all I guess? Owing to a late night, I slept in until 1 and slacked until I finally decided to go to the mountain , despite the rain, and do just a few runs on my neglected board. I might not have, but they posted "we'll be open til 17h!" -- and given the chat I'd had with the bartender the previous day about Sunday's weather, I decided to believe this to be true. They usually close in rain like we had on Sunday, only they had some kind of event happening so anticipated being open regardless. I still had my doubts, and halfway up I started taking bets with myself that they'd actually close early, as usual. I arrived in the still full parking lot ony to discover the door to those glorious new bathrooms was locked, and I could see that of course the Atomic chair was no longer running. I'm guessing they shut down just after 3:30 as there were still a number of people packing up their cars. Not to be deterred, but not totally in the mood for a hike in the rain, I took a drive up the road that runs along La Plagne, just to see where it came out. It turns out you can easily access near the top of La Plagne from the top of that road. So, I drove back down, parked along the side of the road near the base, and did the only sensible thing a jaded and lazy snowboarder could do: I called a cab. It turns out you can get to the top of La Plagne for a totally reasonable $6 cab (and I tipped the driver nicely for such a short ride). Not having been groomed in a few weeks, La Plagne was starting to have that crusty spring topcoat. Since I'm still a beginner, I tend to take things slowly as I practice my turns, and so it was a nice slow run down in the rain, which was now more a mist than a downpour. Once at the bottom, I thought about going back up again but my psoas is super tight this week and I figured I should give it a rest. I was still pretty content with my run though, considering I would have only had time for 2-3 board runs anyways. And it was nice to ride down La Plagne one last time while it was still all in one piece. There was only one little mud slick in the middle, and other than that, it was great!

*pics of all three days to follow as soon as I download them from my phone!*