“There’s more to this place than just skiing,” said one of my ski-lift companions as we soared a hundred feet over lacy-white pine trees that looked like they’d been dipped in icing sugar.
Far behind us were the spires of a quaint Laurentian village. The strange thing, I swear, was that those getting-ever-smaller rooftops were not there when I skied these ancient hills two years ago.
“It’s true,” piped in another passenger on our quad-seat chair lift, as we sat snugly protected from the winds by a plastic bubble-dome. “The whole thing’s new this year.” I was stunned, as I swooped over skiers gunning down the highest mountain in the area, a 2,131-foot drop.
“A lot of the village just opened up this winter,” reported a third rider, an energetic stockbroker from Montreal who admitted that “at 40, you can’t ski all day. You’ll die.”
He shows up, he said, at 8:30 a.m., just after the lifts open and skis for three hours. He has a leisurely lunch of, say, marinated salmon fillets and mango mousse at Le Legende, the upscale restaurant at the summit. “Then I take a few more runs and I’ve had a lovely day.”
Our fourth, a woman, reported that for people “of a certain age,” as the French like to call them, there are even more diversions around Place St.-Bernard, the new heart of the resort village that, unlike most ski areas, has three art galleries and a book store. There is a skating rink with its own Zamboni ice-smoothing machine, a kids day-camp and a salle de fartage, which, I found, has to do with ski-waxing.
It was not what I remembered.
When I was a lad, I served, as did many of my high-school pals, as a counselor at a ski camp in the mountains north of Montreal. In those early-’50s days, as I like to remind my children, we made do with glove-eating rope tows, hills that ran bare when the crowds got heavy and, for lunch, plates of chien chauds, a local foodstuff a k a hot dogs.
At the time, there were perhaps a dozen skiable hills in the area, along with a cross-country trail hacked through the woods in the 1930s by a local character, Herman “Jackrabbit” Johannsen, a Swedish-born entrepreneur who needed a way to carry goods through the snow to mining camps during the Depression years. The path ended at Mont Tremblant, a resort that even then had, for us, an air of specialness.
Opened in 1939, Mont Tremblant Lodge was the dream of Joseph Ryan, a Philadelphia millionaire who first flew into Lac Tremblant in 1938 along with broadcaster Lowell Thomas. They climbed to the summit, fried up a mess of steaks for lunch and thought big.
The following year, Ryan built a chair lift, making his ski area the second-oldest (after Sun Valley) in North America. He built private chalets by the trail bottoms, put in a beauty parlor and persuaded Thomas to do his newscast from the lobby of the lodge. Intrigued, trainloads of Old Wealth visitors arrived from New York and beyond, eager to sample winter sports–and a new diversion known as apres-ski.
I never went to Mont Tremblant in those days. It was too big, too expensive. By the time I could afford it, the place had become a little tacky–after the Ryans sold out to Canadian interests and the fashionable crowds, lured by jets, started going to far-off Aspen and Kitzbuhel.
No more.
In 1991, the place was bought by Intrawest, a realty conglomerate that owns ski areas in British Columbia and the southern U.S. They’ve pumped in more than $300 million, building 450 condos (many rentable), two hotels, high-speed lifts (so skiers can get in more runs) and dining and entertainment facilities, everything a nicely tired skier could want.
“This place has all the bells and whistles of any major resort–even in the West,” noted Mont Tremblant general manager Roger McCarthy, arriving on skis for an interview by the Labriolet, a people-mover that transports skiers from the base to a staging area for upper-mountain lifts. “We have a huge variety of terrain,” he said. “Skiers can have a lot of fun. We have more high-speed lifts than anywhere else in eastern North America. So you can get more skiing in than your legs can handle. And our snow-making equipment fills in when Mother Nature drops.
“And these French-Canadians sure know how to party,” he added. “Some places had to rebuild their bars, reinforcing them because people were dancing on them.”
Nor has the building stopped.
Up the hill is the 308-room, $400-million Chateau Mont Tremblant, a luxury conference hotel due to open next December with two swimming pools, a seawater therapy center and five cast-iron chandeliers in the main ballroom, which looks out onto the splendor of a mountain criss-crossed with ski trails. It’s the kind of place Louis XIV would have built if he had been into skiing.
One of the problems with skiing, of course, is that it’s so complicated–to get all the equipment together. At Mont Tremblant’s Chalet des Voyageurs, a beginner center offers one-stop shopping, with equipment rental, lift tickets and lessons all for one price.
“That’s one of the challenges of skiing,” notes Michel Beaulieu, director of the Montreal Tremblant ski school, where 200 instructors give 100,000 lessons a year. “You’ve got to have your skis, boots, poles, mitts and everything. So we have to make it easy.”
Ski school, others noted, is a great place to meet people.
“Also, lifts are good for making friends,” said one skiier. “The trick is to start in French, even if you’re horrible at it, then let them switch to English. Ask where they’ve skied–and how long the lines are. Never fails.”
You can also, another new friend added, ask about hopes and dreams.
I tried it with an attractive younger woman.
Her hope, she said, was to own “goggles that don’t fog up, ever.”
DETAILS ON MONT TREMBLANT
Getting there: If you’re driving, take the Autoroute des Laurentides north from Montreal to Ste. Agathe, then continue on Quebec Highway 117. Several airlines fly to Montreal from Chicago. American and Air Canada have non-stop flights. Delta and USAir have one-stops. There is shuttle bus service from Montreal’s Dorval Airport to Mont Tremblant.
Getting around: Shuttle buses run into Ste. Jovite, the nearest interesting town. Unless you really want to explore the Laurentian area, renting a car is not necessary.
Currency: The Canadian dollar has been sagging lately. U.S. funds draw a premium of 30 percent or more, depending on daily fluctuations. Or use an ATM machine. They will dispense Canadian dollars and charge your U.S. bank account at a favorable rate.
Visas: No special documents are needed to enter Canada, but take along your passport or driver’s license for identification at the border.
For more information: Contact Mont Tremblant, 800-461-8711.
