2014 12 07 Ski Season Kicked Off at PTdN
We did not get much snow in town last week, but up north they got just enough to open 10 km of the P’tit Train du Nord. The only other place reporting any trails opened was at Mont Tremblant XC (aka Domaine St Bernard) where they had 20 km open. But for this first ski of the season, the PTdN is just fine, so we made that our destination for both Sat and Sun. As usual, we met at Mont Rolland, at the halfway point of the 10 km stretch of opened trail.
Sat was cloudy and -3 C at 10 am for the 7 of us who turned out. There had been a chance of freezing drizzle in the weather forecast, but there was no precipitation of any kind. Most of us opted for the 5 km of trail going north from Mont Rolland. What a pleasure to be out on skis again! Special violet wax worked great. We went to the end of the 5 km and then turned back, so a nice 10 km. As always, the beauty of sharing an out and back trail like this one is that you get to see everyone as the faster people come back to pass the others in the other direction. After skiing, most people checked out the gear at Espresso Sports and stopped in for a soup or coffee at the Café de la Gare.
Sun was quite different from Sat. Sunny and a crisp, but comfortable -13 C at 10 am. There were 7 of us there at 10 am, but another 5 members showed up a bit later. Once again, we all went north on the trail, so on the way back we ran into the latecomers. Among the Sun skiers were two new members on the PTdN for the first time. They loved their experience! So 12 members showed up on Sun, and only 2 of them were also there the day before. So that made 17 members overall for the weekend. A promising start to what we hope will be a great ski season!