Conditions Report
Report from Friday, March 20
After several days of freezing rain recently, Quebec’s Mont-Sainte-Anne was turned into a skating rink. Thankfully, Thursday night brought some fresh snow to the mountain, which softened things up. The temperature hovered around -5 °C with a high cloud ceiling allowing for great visibility.
I started my day on the south side of the mountain and headed up the bubble chair from the parking lot. I was then able to traverse over to the Panorama Express thanks to the new traverse run the mountain put in a couple of years ago to allow skiers to get to the expert section without going all the way down to the gondola.
I started off by skiing La P. A. Rousseau, the newest run on the mountain. The run was opened in 2015 in honour of P. A. Rousseau, who grew up training moguls at Mont-Sainte-Anne and went on to win a freestyle world championship in moguls in 2007. The run is rated a double black and is a steep and narrow mogul run that drops off a ridge and funnels down to connect to the old triple chair line. Even with 12cm of snow overnight, the icy base made for a very challenging run. I gladly embraced this challenge, after all, what’s a good day on the East Coast without a little bit of ice to spice things up.
I then headed over to La Crête, which many consider to be Mont-Sainte-Anne’s signature run. From the top of the run, you are treated to a panoramic view of the Sainte Lawrence River and Quebec City in the distance. The run then hugs the western ridge of the mountain before diving down the side of the expert bowl.
I ended the morning skiing the north side of the mountain, which consists mostly of intermediate terrain. One of the runs I did on the north was named after Mélanie Turgeon, who grew up ski racing at Mont-Sainte-Anne and went on to win a gold medal in downhill at the 2003 FIS Alpine World Championships in St. Moritz.
In the afternoon, I skied the expert terrain off Gros Vallon on the south side, which features steep bump runs and glades like La Belle, La Bête, and La Buissonnière. I then headed over to the glades off La Montmorency, which were thinned out around 2013 and opened as La Yahoo and La Palette. These glades provide steep, tight lines as well as mellow open lines, depending on where you drop in. This zone is great for progression and holds powder stashes days after a storm. The zone ends at the Sugar Shack, which sells maple taffy out of an old wooden shack halfway down the mountain during spring skiing.
Over the last 20 years, Mont-Sainte-Anne has added 10 new glade runs, ranging from intermediate to expert, and there is still plenty of terrain to add more in the future. With glades scattered throughout the mountain, Mont-Sainte-Anne offers some of the most diverse and challenging tree skiing in the east.
