I don’t usually go out of my way to look up the price of the ski tickets of the places we are going to. Prices of ski tickets very between centers, and if one place is a bit higher, well at least we only go there once a season. But for whatever reason I did it for Oka. Most of us were taken aback at the prospect of paying $23.50 to go to Oka, one of our traditional stand-by destinations. Oka is part of the Sépaq network of national (i.e., provincial) parks and they have been hiking their prices each year. I used their web site to compute the price, since it is a combination of the park access and a ski pass. But it turns out they also have a a daily “forfait” combining the two. So when we got to the park we charged “only” $22. That’s still on the high side and even the ticket booth attendants conceded that it’s getting expensive!
Despite the premium rates, 14 BTers made the trip to Oka. It was -10 C and overcast as we
prepared to set out shortly after 9:30 am. The trail conditions were very good. We broke up into two main groups with 10 of us looking to do the full length of hilly trail 3 (15 km) and the four others doing shorter and flatter trails. Trail 3 gets harder the farther out you go on it, and its rating changes accordingly. It starts as a beginner trail, becomes an intermediate trail, and is finally an expert trail. It’s that last part where one has to go up and down a succession of fairly steep hills. It was a workout to climb up the hills since it was the first time this season we were encountering non-flat trails. The descents were a bit slick and fast, but there was still enough snow on them and all of us found them quite manageable. When we returned to chalet after about two hours on the trails, three of the girls who had taken the flatter trails were taking a break. But they were soon back out and off to tackle another trail. Two of the group who did trail 3 also went out to do more. Meanwhile Patricia was still out there from before. People were determined to get their money’s worth! The rest of us had tired ourselves out on the hills and once Patricia finally found her way back, we decided to call it a day. Despite taking our time to leave, those five other skiers were still out skiing when we left.
So a pricy day at Oka and maybe we won’t go back there as often as we used to. But it’s still a great place and we were all glad to have been there on this day!