Mont St-Édouard, isolated in the far-northeastern Laurentians, has bet its future on opening new backcountry terrain for local skiers.
For many resorts, the sport’s hottest trend is their biggest problem.
Ski destinations throughout North America are struggling to cope with the revival of old-fashioned ski touring, now called alpine touring, which scoffs at chairlifts as it scours the backcountry for ungroomed powder snow.
Watching as young people especially flock to the backcountry, resort operators worry about losing an entire generation of paying customers. They also worry about liability when skiers use their lifts to gain access to potentially dangerous terrain beyond area boundaries. And now, they’re faced with the emergence of so-called uphill skiers, who climb up and ski down their trails without paying the price of a lift.
But Quebec’s little Mont Édouard, isolated in the far-northeastern Laurentians, is the first Canadian ski area to have it all figured out. Welcoming rather than bucking the trend, the resort has bet its future on opening new terrain for local skiers – not with chairlifts and chainsaws, but with a growing network of uphill trails leading to the summits of neighbouring mountains. Wood-heated cabins provide shelter up top and tree-studded aprons of deep powder snow descend hundreds of metres below. Ski patrollers ensure the stoves stay hot and no one gets lost.
I admit I was skeptical when ski guide Frédéric Blouin whisked a group of us into a helicopter and away from the beckoning slopes of Le Massif de Charlevoix for a day’s skiing at an obscure municipal hill 100 kilometres to the north. But within an hour of landing at Mont Édouard, I was in love. By day’s end, I was convinced I had experienced the future of skiing.
The steep up-tracks are worth the effort.
Some things are worth the effort – even though, as I discovered that day, Quebec-style up-tracks are brutally steep. I was gasping as I ascended the final few metres to the Refuge de la grive, a cabin at the highest point of the Mont Édouard backcountry, only to discover that two of my young and fit companions on the trail that day had just become engaged. A diamond sparkled, and a cheer rose up among the dozen fellow romantics packed inside the snug little cabin all by itself on the mountaintop.
That’s just not the sort of thing that happens in your regular ski chalet cafeteria.
Blouin calls it “le monde parallèle” – the strikingly alternate reality one enters with the first turn off a groomed track and into the backcountry. The outside world withers away as nature closes in, demanding care and respect in your approach. You labour willingly towards a reward that is painfully withheld. But the ensuing consummation – and that’s surely the right word – is as reliably euphoric as anything else of the kind.
“You experience skiing on a totally different level,” says Blouin, a partner at Whisjack, a local guiding company. “That’s why we call it a parallel world.”
For Whisjack, Mont Édouard provides the model it hopes to employ at Le Massif, a far larger, more accessible and increasingly popular ski resort in the Charlevoix region east of Quebec City. As large as it is, Le Massif occupies only a fraction of the high ridge that dominates the north shore of the St. Lawrence upstream towards Cap-Tourmente and Beaupré. The rest of it is an untouched skier’s paradise. Starting in 2019, Whisjack will be guiding touring parties from the resort into nearby terrain that includes the highest vertical drops – and ascents – in the east.
The need to stay safe while keeping fit helps explain the recent emergence of uphill skiers, who use backcountry gear to bypass chairlifts without ever straying out of bounds.
Similar services are now available at many Western resorts, where some of the world’s best backcountry skiing is often just a chairlift ride away. Lake Louise resort recently teamed up with Yamnuska Mountain Adventures to offer one-day, lift-assisted tours into that mountain’s fabled back bowls. Adrenalin Descents offers similar tours at Kicking Horse resort in Golden, B.C., at the gateway to the famous Powder Highway stretching west past Rogers Pass and Revelstoke. Whistler Blackcomb now offers one-time tickets for self-guided backcountry skiers, provided they are equipped with avalanche safety gear and know how to use it.
In return for the quality of Western powder, though, you face risks that change everything. I would never venture beyond the ropes at a Western resort without a certified mountain guide in the lead (never again, to be clear – but that’s another story).
The need to stay safe while keeping fit helps explain the recent emergence of uphill skiers, who use backcountry gear to bypass chairlifts without ever straying out of bounds. The practice is popular in Quebec, but still restricted or prohibited at Western Canada resorts – much as snowboarding was in that sport’s early days.
For me, true love can only be found “off piste,” among friends and in the embrace of unkempt nature, stalking the wild snow. It’s where skiing began, where the essential romance of the sport still thrives. And thanks to the latest developments at the most progressive resorts, it’s never been easier to find.
The writer was a guest of Whisjack at Mont Édouard. The organization did not review or approve this story before publication.