I have been watching the recent revival of the X-Files TV series. It occurred to me that I can relate to Fox Mulder. As he does with aliens, I am often trying to convince people that skiable snow *does* exist out there, despite the lack of any tangible evidence outside their windows here in the city. Like Mulder, I am usually greeted with skepticism. Some think I’m an outright crackpot.
This past weekend’s S-File was a case in point. After last week’s thaw and rain, the conditions here in Montreal were very poor for skiing, assuming trails were open at all. But I heard reports of sightings of snow up north. I worked to get more evidence and then to persuade people that they just needed to believe. If they were brave enough to venture out and go to the right place, they too could actually see aliens, er, I mean, snow!
I settled on Parc des Campeurs in Ste Agathe. I considered Gai Luron, which was also reporting most of its trails open. But I figured a bit further north would give us more assurance of skiable terrain. And, after all, Ste Agathe was the original destination we had in the schedule for Feb 7.
There were 14 of us who turned out at Parc des Campeurs at 9:45 am last Sun. The parking lot was not very crowded. Another nice thing about this place — the price is right! The trail ticket is $13, which is a bargain compared to most of the off-island ski centres we are going to these days.
It was -9 C and it was not supposed to get warmer than -7 C. It felt warmer than -9 C, as we set out under blue skies. It soon clouded over, but the temperature stayed comfortable. There was about 5 cm of fluffy snow on top of a crusty base. The centre had last groomed the trails three days earlier, but with the light skier traffic there, it was just as well they did not re-groom. It left more of the new snow for us to enjoy.
We all started out through the camping area and headed towards the Stonehaven
trail and then to the Grignon and Vanier trails. We soon split up into four groups of 2 to 4 skiers according to our speed. The trails were in very good shape, but the descents were definitely harder and faster this day. It was important to focus on having a good snowplow stance to maintain control on the downhills. We had 2 skiers who stayed on the green trails. As advertised in the last update message, the greens at Parc des Campeurs have a fair amount of climbs and descents. They found the trails challenging, but still enjoyable. On the other end of things, our “A” team trio of skiers (Scott, Dennis and Ghyslaine) was the only group to do the 1-km long climb (and then back down) to the top of Mont Ste Agathe. The rest of decided to save that one for another day.
We all skied for about 2 hours and then gathered at the chalet d’accueil. Everybody said they were so very happy they had come out to Parc des Campeurs this day. The conditions were just so much better than most of us had expected. Even our one skier who decided to skip skiing and stay in the chalet to nurse a cold had a pleasant morning. She sat by the window with her sketch pad and drew something she saw that she thought looked unusual. Could it have been an alien spacecraft? Perhaps the S-Files will merge with the X-Files after all!