Posts Tagged With: Mont-tremblant

Mont-tremblant, Quebec Sunday Sept. 21

On the road for two weeks and fall colors are finally starting to pop out. We left Quebec in clouds and drove through rain, heavy at times to reach Mont-tremblant. There was one Canadian historic site along the way we wanted to visit but like many places up here, and in other northern tourist areas, it shut down for the season Sept. 1. So the drive was not exciting until the last hour or so as we drove up the Laurentian Mountains.

Mont-tremblant mountain and village from our unit

For the Laurentian, think Appalachian or Smoky Mountains. The highest point in the Laurentian is about 3800 feet. Mont-tremblant is 3000 feet. The elevation gain makes for interesting driving. Steady rain lower down, up here becomes misty and mixes in with low clouds to provide not quite foggy driving conditions with very little view above you. The Adirondacks in New York are actually an extension of the Laurentian Mountains.

Fall leaf color as seen from our unit

We could observe trees with greater color once we were about 100 miles out of Quebec. We kept hoping for an opportunity to take photos but the rain and lack of pull-overs made that impossible. As we drove up, we thought, well, Monday is supposed to be sunny so we should get some great shots then. As always, the weather forecast is changing. What was forecast as a sunny day for Monday has changed to mainly cloudy and then partly cloudy on Tuesday with a freeze at night.

The drive here gave me another opportunity to complain to Chris about (other) drivers. Speeding through construction zones was frequent. To me, it seemed that the proportion of drivers only using daytime running lights was abnormally high. With the rain and the mist, it was difficult to see cars in front of you if they did not have their rear lights lit.

Entrance to Mont-tremblant ski village

We checked in at our lodging, Club Intrawest. It is a timeshare affiliated with Hilton. We have a one bedroom loft with jacuzzi tub and a patio on the second floor of a block of ten units. From our patio we can view the Mont-tremblant ski slope and village. The literature in the room says this place was started by a guy from Philly and by Lowell Thomas, the journalist. They installed one of the first mechanical ski lifts in North America and the boom began. The area reminds us of Park City, Utah or Whisler, BC. There are condos, timeshares and hotels and cutesy shops at the bottom of the slope.

Street scene from cutesy village

The town hosts numerous events through the year. Right now, there is a 10 day event of programming for active epicureans (people much more into food than us). The town hosts FOUR Ironman competitions here during the summer. The last one was September 7. We were too late to enter it.

Fall colors

Fall colors

A crepe dinner was our reward for a day of driving followed by shopping for miscellaneous groceries for the timeshare unit. The skies alternated between raining and trying to clear up and
afforded us several opportunities to snap some good photos.

Fall colors

Ed and Chris Sept 21 9:10 pm