Lifts and weather this past weekend

[powdersc]

Although it was bluebird skies all weekend, those were two of the coldest days I can remember at Tremblant. Any exposed skin was definitely vulnerable to frostbite in a short period of time. With the weather it definitely kept people away from the mountain this weekend and was nice to open up some fast turns without the worries of others slowing you down. I was very impressed with the surface and grooming of expo and the condition it stayed in throughout the weekend.. We need a good dump or two though to get dynamite filled in and any stashes still have undermined rocks and stumps which my board can verify!! Thanks to the guys at chalet des voyageurs repair shop for some quick surgery of P-tex!!!!

Only downfall which occurs on a regular basis is the "progressive opening" status.... IMHO it should read "depending on how many people pay to ski today, we will turn the lift" With the limited numbers on the mountain, i really wasnt complaining but to have the TGV and soleil lifts down for no apparant reason?? It would have been nice to stay on soleil yesterday with the sun beaming down on it... Might have brought the temp up to -35!!!!

[T360]

Hi Powdersc,

This was definitely a cool one.

With all due respect to all...

We don't know what to say about the progressive openings.
We're not Ski Area Operators, so we can only work with the
Officially provided info, so if we don't have the facts for a specific
instance, rather than having a speculative opinion or guess,
we choose to remain neutral and just focus on how to make the best
of it. Unfortunately, we occasionally take "Heat" from others
because they think being neutral isn't being honest, but we're willing
to endure that because being neutral is just being neutral and should not
be confused with any specific reaction.

Of course we are happy when reasonable explanations are provided and
we will relay any verifiable and/or Official information along when possible.

Mother Nature unquestionably has the last word when it
comes to the weather and all we can ever do is adapt to
the best of our abilities. Then we can brag to anyone we can about
how tough we are to be able to take the cold and still have fun.

We think we actually have been there on a couple of
occasions when temps were similar, and one when they
were definitely colder.

You may recall, back in the season of somewhere around 2004
or 2005, Tremblant had a deal where you could buy discounted
lift tickets on-line, in advance.

Carefully co-ordinating days off, we bought these particular passes
about 2 weeks in advance, so when the time came and there were
cold weather warnings we thought we were tough enough and besides,
there were no refund provisions with the on-line advance purchase deal
and we didn't want to lose the value, so off we go...

-42C which I remember very clearly on the weather network that morning,
because they spent a lot of time talking about the fact that the Celsius and
Fahrenheit temp scales cross at -40.

Anyway, on top of that they were talking about the howling jet stream too,
forecasting wind chill values at -60"+"C.

I used a three way exterior Christmas light adapter to run both the block
heater and a 300 watt magnetic oil pan heater on the old V.W. Golf. It was the
only car that started with no assistance in the condo parking lot that morning.

Typical of these very cold days, it was brilliantly sunny and it was in February
when the sun is higher and out longer, so with the temps forecasted to rise
to a balmy -22C I felt confident that it would start Apres Ski if parked facing
the sun in P1, and it did.

The skiing was unique.

It is my understanding that Skis and Boards work on the same principle
as skates, that is to say, by the laws of physics, a molecular thin layer of
lubricating water along the metal edge created by friction allows glide
with gravity, over resistance.

At -42C it is too cold for this to happen, so you end up with gravity only
and without the little water lubrication, the resistance increases to the
point that it is like skiing on sand.

You could, and I did, go straight down Vertige and the resistance held you
back. It was amazing because I had never experienced that before.
There was almost zero "Glide", so you had to push on anything to get
to Johannsen.

I had every layer I own on, all at once, and feeling like the "Michelin Man"
could only do 2 runs at a time on the Gondola. There was no other lift
option, the North was closed completely as nothing could be started, or so
they told us. Our recollection is that we did 10 runs the whole day.

Every time it gets really cold now, we re-live those memories with a mix
of awe, wonder and a tiny bit of incredulous "How the hell did we do that?".

Non-the-less, we were there and we did ski it.

If you look at todays (1/24/11) T360 Conditions report, that's the reason we
spent just about the majority on the weather advisory/safety issue.


.

[powdersc]

T360

By no means am i asking or even suggesting you change the official Tremblant.ca "forcasted" lift openings or operation. I made the comment more as an observation I am seeing take place. Unfortunately its taking place more and more often and with no real expanation as to why it is making people question it. I am definitely a glass half full person and cold weather isnt going to stop me from getting out (the season is wayy too short to pick and choose your days). I had a fantastic weekend and if i took the time to learn how to use my gopro, i could forward alot of footage...

There will always be negative and positive attributes to a ski hill and the operations including the information we are given. When dealing with personal websites, you will be given different persepectives from different forum members all of which have various capabilities on the hill and expectations of what they feel they should see. Its up to the reader to use the information given and take it as true or false. You will never see a resort post something negative about themselves, however I question the honesty with the "progressive opening" status when weather factors did not change, snow quality and quantity did not change and wind variables were fairly constant. I'm posting regarding this but i KNOW im not the only one thinking it, whether it be a local or first timer to Tremblant.

Hope this new snow fills in some stashes out there!!!!

[freeskier678]

Well, I think the Soleil lift should be closed on these -25 days for safety concern and the Duncan should be closed also. Think of this if something was ever to happen to the Soleil or Duncan which happens quite often lately... and they had to evacuate it some people would easily receive frostbite because of how long it would take. You know when you are skiing and you are pretty cold, but you say "alright one more" imagine getting stuck on the lift in that state and having to wait for the crews to take you down. The gondala took 5 hours to get everyone off and there is many more chairs then cabins on Duncan or Soleil.

The T.G.V should have opened that day no excuse for that....

[T360]

Hi Powdersc, (and greetings to other readers too...)

Thanks for your feedback.

We hear ya on everything and only put those general
references in for those less understanding than
we all are here. We're sorry we even have to talk about
them, and we know you're not suggesting that at all,
that's a huge reason we value your (& everyone's) contributions
here so much.

Having an intelligent discussion about the Tremblant Alpine
experience will always have some healthy debate and we're
grateful for this type of quality conversation which is based on
reason, logic and respect for all.

Part of the problem with some social media is
that they feel that they need to slam others as
a way of supporting their own POV as ideal.

So then, theoretically, if you wanted to be totally "transparent"
you'd only list verifiable fact and no POV at all.

But....

When you are a dedicated "Fan" though, you are, by extension,
a "supporter", and as supporters we try to favour a positive
POV, just because life is so much better that way.

This is also why we feel it is much better to try to focus on
how to make the best positive utility of Tremblant, regardless of
why some decisions are made, and as previously mentioned, all
Official Info/explanations that lead to better understanding, are
welcome.

We guess, if there was a message in all this, it's that positive,
user-friendly information is almost always helpful, from all sources.

Is it just a coincidence this morning 1/25/11 that there are
ZERO progressive openings on 89 open runs!

So then ... What runs are we gunna carve up first?!