We were expecting 20 cm of snow to fall up north last Sat night, but not also in the city. There was a lot of snow to clear off the cars on Sun morning and as a result we all arrived 10-15 minutes late at Parc des Campeurs for the scheduled 9:30 am arrival time. With the cold winter we have had, the temp was a blessedly mild -3 C under cloudy skies. It pretty much stayed at that temp the whole time we were there.
With all the new snow that had only just stopped falling as we arrived, the ski centre was behind in their grooming. With so much snow on the ground, they elected to first do a quick pass on the green and blue trails by snowmobile so they would be flattened (or “tapé” as they called it in french). So when we started skiing, it was on those flattened trails, but with some shallow tracks created by skiers who had already gone ahead of us.
We all started out together on the trail that winds through the campground, in between the snow-covered trailers. We got a couple of great group shots of all of eight us (in two photos, seven at a time). Sharon then went off to do her own thing while the rest of us took the green Stonehaven trail. The trails were beautiful, with much fluffy snow sitting gingerly on the tree branches. It happened several times that a slight breeze would nudge the overhead branches and unleash a small cascade of snow on top of us. One of the photos captures this a bit.
The Stonehaven is an out and back trail, unless one cuts off at the black Oblats trail which goes up and over a big hill to take a short cut to the blue Grignon. But being a black trail, the Oblats had not yet been groomed at all. However, some skiers had gone before us, and we were persuaded by the more enthusiastic members of our group to give it a go. With all the snow on the trail, it was a real back-country type experience for 750 m. Climbing uphill was a good bit more work since the skis would sink in the snow. The downhills were certainly nicely snow-covered, but we did have a couple of tumbles due to a ski sliding out of the path and suddenly getting stuck in the deep snow.
Once we got off the Oblats, we were on the blue Grignon and back on the flattened trails with skier-made tracks. We proceeded west on the Grignon and then the Belvoir. When we reached the turn off for the ungroomed 1-km climb to the top of Mont Ste Agathe, three of our more energetic skiers that day (Mickey, Den & Chris) decided they were up for some more back-country type skiing. The rest of us (Helene, Cheryl, Glenn, me) decided to stick to the semi-groomed trails. We took the first part of the Davis and then Deux Lacs. We got back to the chalet having covered 15 km, all on semi-groomed trails. Meanwhile, the trio who did Mont Ste Agathe found that the tracking machine had passed when they got back down to the main trail. The took the Davis all they way back and had freshly-tracked trails all the way back. They skied 16 km.
Whether we skied on freshly-tracked trails, flattened trails, or the occasional back-country-like trail, we all had a great time. Parc des Campeurs provided, as usual, a very picturesque setting for a Sunday ski. The fact that we were able to enjoy such a splendid day this late in the season (on the Ides of March) was a real bonus!