01/17/05 - Mont Orford (Canada)

Resort: Mont Orford, QC, Canada

Date Skied: 01/17/05

Conditions: 9 degrees, clear at first, followed by clouds and a wind, 2 inches of fresh snow over hard pack some icy spots.

Trip Report:


The weather was calling for snow Sunday night. Well, it kind of fizzled out. There was 1 inch of dry fluffy snow on my car in the morning. The temperature was 10 degrees. As we arrived at Orford for 9am, the snow was about 2 inches deep.

The L’Hybride (summit 6 pack / gondola) had some stop and go issues at first. We had stopped and there were two guys checking and adjusting the sheave on the tower before us. After about 5 minutes we were up an running and the lift was going full throttle. Everything was nice and white to the summit! The first run down was the 4km summit road trail and then alternating Grand Coulee and Trois Russieux. They were all great runs but we found that under the 2 or so inches of fluffy snow there were icy areas.

As the day progressed and more skiers hit the trails the fluffy snow was skied off to reveal a hard pack and the ice spots. There were no bumps to be found. Around 11:30am there was a major amount of fog at the summit. Some snow rolled in and the wind picked up. The best runs, in my opinion were Sherbrooke and Slalom on Mont Giroux East.

It was a great day today at Orford. I broke even today with my mid week seasons pass.
A parting shot, there is more to this, but the fog / cloud / snow on the summit hides it:

I skied at Orford on 1/16 thought Orford had pretty good conditions and a lot open compared to Sutton where is skied on 1/15. Orford was making some very powdery snow on Trois Rousseax which was a delight to ski from the first run to the last run. Gran Coulee did get icey later in the day. I was impressed with conditions and the variety of open trails. It looked like Orford had made snow on some of the gnarlier sections of the triple black diamond under the six pack lift.

Orford overall was great! I am happy, getting use out of my midweek pass. How long did it take to get from Orford to Sutton?

Driving from Sutton to Orford took about an hour on snowy roads, though if you knew the route well the time could be less. I went to Quebec to avoid the MLK crowds and suceeded in finding good ski conditions and a reasonable number of people to share the slopes with.

Some day I hope to hit Orford with fresh snow so I can tackle some of the chutes and steeper terrain that has been closed on earlier visits.

How challenging is the skiing there? Of the two, Orford and Sutton, which is the steeper?

I have skied both resorts only once, but I skied both of them with nearly 100% of the trails open and with 6-12" of new snow having fallen the day before each visit. I would say that Mt Orford is more challenging, alot of the chutes are quite steep if a bit short. I do not have a trail map to refer to here at work, but I did ski some really steep stuff. Out of the three resorts that I have skied in Eastern Canada (My Orford , Mt Sutton and Owls Head) I would say that Mt Orford offered the most challenge.

The hybrid chondola was a nice refuge from the -20F + cold last January, and alowed me to endure about 12 runs during our day trip from Sugarloaf. This season I hope to ski Mt Adstock, which I hear is also challenging. Visiting there all depends on the amount of snow that falls in the next two weeks, and the condition of the roads from Sugarloaf to Mt Adstock.

Hope this has been some help

Mt Adstock, the first I have heard of it! I found their site and contacted them. It is about 1 1/4 hour' drive from Sherbrooke. Not bad, considering it took us 45 minutes from Sherbrooke to Mont Shefford. Since I have the midweek pass for Orford, that leaves Saturday and Sunday open to try other ski areas when up in the area.

I first heard about Mt Adstock from a friend that posts on FTO. Supposedly this is a somewhat challenging place that is not to far from Sugarloaf. Usually I meet up with my brother who lives in Montreal. I did this last year and Orford was about a 2 1/4 hour drive from Sugarloaf.

I am just a bit concerned about the language barrier as I do not speak alot of french and Mt Adstock's website is completly in french. Right now they only have 9 out of 19 trails open, and almost all of the difficult terrain is closed, so they need more snow to make the drive worth it for me.

I emailed Adstock in English and the response was also in English. The mountain looks to be as challenging as Mont Shefford, but Adstock has a quad and a T-bar as opposed to three T-bars at Shefford.

I think the next 4 day trip will include Adstock.