Tremblant360.com

It’s October, 2020, and all dedicated Tremblant Winter Alpine Snow Sports Fans are eagerly anticipating the upcoming Ski/Snowboard season. We remain optimistic that despite Covid-19, the Ski season is possible. Obviously there is an element of public nervousness in any anticipations, as the whole planet is enduring the Covid-19 International health pandemic that both literally and figuratively is generating “Moving Targets” for all planers across the entire spectrum of Human endeavour. The experience of recent months shows that activity has had to be modified or curtailed in many ways that have been unexpected and unpredictable. From an 8 month observational standpoint since the beginning of last March, we have seen first waves, dips, second waves, hot spots, special red zones, breakouts and many other descriptive terms applied to the per-capita case rates that have necessitated alterations to many of the plans made by humans around the world.

Can future 2020/21 Skiing in Canada, in Quebec, at Tremblant, escape the kinds of interruptions that seem to have been occurring so far? We think yes, but under the very strict, serious, implementation and conduct of  the Covid-19 protocols that are currently called for, and may be additionally necessary in future, by both the scientific and regulatory/governmental authorities.

The alarming part that everyone has seen in public behavioural examples over the summer months though, is that there are some members of the public who are not taking the preventative measures seriously. You can walk out your front door and see people engaged in high risk activity, you can survey social media, or turn on televised broadcast news and see almost endless disregard for science-based Covid-19 preventative measures that have caused significant increases in spread. Unfortunately as it may seem, humans can then only blame themselves for the reactionary, restrictive interventions in order to reduce those rates of spread.

One logical conclusion could then be argued to be that if everyone took the implementation of Covid-19 Protocols to the maximized and optimized degrees possible, many, many human activity plans could safely take place, including Ski Seasons. In that sense, our collective ability to move forward may be directly proportional to our collective ability to conform to sustained safe practice that neutralizes and reduces spread.

Certainly, there are going to be aspects of the new season that under current policy will probably not be similar to all previous history. The biggest potential difference may be the consequence of Global/International Travel Restrictions that prohibit “Non-Essential” travel between countries. In the most severe forms of travel restrictions, we’ve even seen “Stay at home” orders when authorities deem sufficient threat to public health. It is not yet clear whether or not any of those restrictions would be in place at either future dates, or between what regions or countries, but there is sufficient existing precedent(example: repetitive monthly extensions of Border closings or crossing restrictions), to suggest the possibilities we could be faced with are domestic only participations, at least to begin with.

More specifically related to the start-up permissions for this season, of all the Canadian East Coast Ski Resorts, we think Tremblant may be near the top of the group in terms of being suited to make the Covid-19 adaptations necessary to logistically support their regional Ski/Board community. There are loads of high speed detachable quad’s for controlling lift-serviced outdoor social distancing and the Gondola is perfect for “Family Bubble” groups, so if there end up being less International guests, the consequent reduction in overall density makes it seem doable? With a network of over 100 trails/82 Kilometres, covering 750 big, big acres of  wide open spaces, even during normal times, there’s just so much square area you can often feel like you’re all by yourself, so in a Covid-19 context, in our opinion, social distancing will never be an issue on the trails at Tremblant.

No one has ever done this before. In virtually every form of customer/supplier exchange relationship, it is apparent that it takes patience, understanding and co-operation from all parties, from product and service providers to end users. If “Skiing” has any inherent advantages, those may prove to be the vast ratio of outdoor space to the number of participants, and the fact that Skiers are already used to wearing facial masks, for only two examples. These types of natural advantages may mean that Covid-19 accommodations are easier to facilitate within Ski Area domains.

Ultimately, a safe, effective vaccine may prove to be the answer or key to a long term solution for the recovery of the widest range of human endeavour, however there is much work yet to be done on that front that could take months according to the best science-based Covid-19 information sources available at this writing.

Referring largely to weather factors, we’ve written many times in our daily conditions reports: “Them That Adapts The Quickest, Has The Most Fun”… For different reasons, but just as critically important now, that may be directly applicable to attempting a Ski Season in the middle of a pandemic. What’s next? Time will tell, but for us, the annual fall preparations of filing edges, base cleaning/waxing and checking binding release function starts now.

In the mean-time, you can “visualize” Tremblant Ski Conditions archived here: Tremblant360 daily conditions journal