Mont Orford, Quebec - Feb 19-20

[ChileMass]

Date(s) Skied: Feb 19-20, 2004

Resort or Ski Area: Mont Orford, Quebec

Conditions: Some Powder, mainly Packed Powder, Hard Pack, many ice spots

Trip Report: This was simply one of those trips where almost everything goes perfectly. Weather, lodging, conditions, ambience, kids were terrific, the exchange rate was a nice bonus, etc etc. We all walked around with smiles on our faces for 3 days, and after only about 20 minutes at the hill all of us were saying, "I really like this place".......The bi-lingual thing is very cool for us insulated Americans, and it's a good opportunity to expose the kids to a "foreign" culture.

The family and I (wife and 2 daughters aged 7.5 and 11.5) drove up to Orford form the Worcester area on Wednesday, which took about 4.5 hours including a quick bio-break in NH and a lunch break in St. Johnsbury, VT. High clouds broke in Concord, NH and we didn't see another cloud for the next 3 days. Awesome sunny trip through Franconia Notch where we got to see firsthand where the Old Man used to be - bummer.

Our 3 bedroom, 1 bath condo at Village Mont-Orford was kinda small and older (my bro and his family from the Albany NY area joined us - total of 4 adults and 4 kids), but we managed. Brought along a couple air mattresses for the 2 smaller kids. Larger, 4 BR units exist at VMO, but they were booked. This is the only "slopeside" accomodation at Orford, and it's over near the base of the Giroux Est (East) quad. It's about 300 yards or so through the condos and woods and across a parking lot to the lift, and small kids and wives wished it was just a little closer, but what the heck.....There are brand new condo units under construction now, which are just at the edge of the parking lot, and look to be an improvement over the limited selection available this season. We are going to try for them next year. Despite the walk, it was easy to load at Giroux Est, as the crowds were minimal both days (winter vacation in Quebec is in 2 weeks, and Ontario the week after that, which increases traffic significantly, I'm told).

Trails: I really liked the layout of the 3 mountains. Of course, 3 sunny days of 30-35*F weather would make the Mass Pike look good. It looks like a lot of earth-moving must have been done when the trails were laid out, as there are lots of really STEEP rolls followed by a long transitional runout followed by another steep pitch, repeat, repeat, repeat...... It's a great cruising mountain, but the real hardcore will have any number of chutes, glades and bump runs to choose from - there were double diamond glades available everywhere, and the woods were filled with skiers and boarders. Orford prides itself on being both a family mountain and a great hardcore mountain. The boarders I saw there were without question the best I have ever seen.

Most of the blue squares are very challenging - I have seen other hills (Snowbird UT comes to mind) where trails are designated blue/black (with the diamond inside the square) and several of Orford's blues warrant this (Grande Coulee, Slalom, Jean Davignon). Mont Giroux has a good selection of blues and blacks - Magnum is a single diamond which comes off the left shoulder of Giroux and drops steeply straight down the fall line - it was scraped down to hardpack both days, but some good snow was available on both edges. A great steep cruiser! Slalom is also an upper-level blue trail which we did a few laps on. Mont Orford itself is mainly single diamonds, and Maxi and Trois Ruisseaux (3 Brooks) would have been awesome except they were scraped down to icy sheets at the top. Both trails offer several steep pitches with moguls on one side and a wide groomed avenue down the other. Unfortunately, there is only one green trail off the summit of Orford (4K) which is just a narrow maintenance road for the first mile with lots of snowplowers on it. The views from this trail, however, are probably the best on the mountain. Grande Coulee may have been our favorite trail, though. Great twisting run with 3 separate pitches to negotiate and long high-speed runouts in between. We cruised this over and over, and the kids really had a ball. Mont Alfred Desrocher is exclusively green and easy blues, so the smaller kids had a lot of fun over there (adults taking turns with the little ones). Great trails, well-connected, could use more grooming......

Lifts - brand-new "hybrid" lift this season. Three 6-seat open chairs alternate with one 8-person enclosed gondola car, which whisk you away to the top of Orford in less than 5 minutes (1772' vertical - same as Attitash, NH by the way). 2 new quads also at Mont Giroux. The double chair at Mont Desrocher was old and SLOW. And - when we took the TBar to go back to our condo yesterday, the cable jumped the track and we got to stand around for 20 minutes while they fixed it.......

Lodge/Etc - pretty basic and kinda beat on. The bar is smoky (it's Canada), but the deck outside was fabulous due to the warm sun. The apres-ski Heineken draft was ice cold..... My kids took lessons for 2 hours on Thusday, and Jean-Phillipe (l'instructeur de ski) was just great. I think both my older daughter and my wife are in love with him.....oh well. We need to find a good restaurant, because the first place we tried was awful. Did better on Thursday night, but perhaps AZ needs a restaurant review page to help out people who are first-timers at a new hill.....

Overall - we gave Orford high marks across the board, and are already planning next year's trip. Jean-Phillipe the ski instructor said the weather "is never like this", meaning sunny and warm, but hey it wouldn't be eastern skiing otherwise. This was about as close to a western ski experience weather-iwse I have ever had on the east coast, so we got lucky - but I highly recommend Orford to families looking for a reasonably priced getaway. Not a lot of night life, so singles may be disappointed.

Sorry no pics, my damned camera is too big and a pain to schlep around on skis......

[skijay]

I am glad you enjoyed it. Orford was packed on Saturday and Sunday (2/15 & 2/16). We did Montjoye and Shefford.

I think things will change next year up there. Rumors say that there will be night skiing and another gondola installed. So far nobody has been able to confirm this. Maybe it will be the Tremblant of the Townships.

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[ChileMass]

One of the staff said the plan is for some lights to be installed this summer, and more new lifts. According to this guy, there is a big problem between the town of Magog and the management of the Orford provincial park. The townspeople have had a sweet deal for years because there has always been minimal development allowed at the mountain itself (tight restriction of condos, restaurants, bars, etc), and almost all the skiers have to stay in town, 5 minutes away. Now the provincial park wants in on the action and is lobbying for development grants to build more hospitality infrastructure at the base of Orford. Until that gets settled, I was told the plan is for the mountain management to focus on lifts, grooming equipment, etc until they can figure out how to make all the parties happy. This is definitely a hill that needs a base village, and man, it would be a lot of fun if they had one. The people I met there were having loads of fun even with minimal amenities available at the hill itself.....