This year’s Stowe Nordic ski trip headed to Mont Saint Anne (MSA) just north of Quebec City for 4 days of skiing. With 200km of trails, MSA is the largest XC ski area in North America!
We were given the heads up to meet no later than 6:45 am on Thursday to board the bus (chartered from Richard’s Limousine of Morrisville) with our passports or EDLs at-the-ready. Leaving at 7 am would mean arriving in time for an afternoon ski, and everyone arrived on time. There was plenty of room and breakfast/coffee was provided (yum) for the 5 hour trip to the resort. Moods were great and it was a fun ride up, despite our world being in the very early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
We rolled up our lodge – the Chalet du Fondeur – situated right on the trails. Sweet! It’s large windows faced the trails giving us, literally, a window to skiing. This was THE place to be. Friday’s afternoon ski was a little icy and quite fast : )
Dinner that evening was delicious and fun, as it was all evenings. Happy hour beforehand was also a great time. There was plenty of food and drink! We also enjoyed breakfast together (Ed Miller took the roll of chief coffee maker) and had the option to make a lunch to bring on the trails, or come back to the chalet for lunch. Needless to say, no one went hungry.
Of note was the variety of weather. On Friday, (our first full day) Mother Nature provided a big storm of 11” or so of snow, and skiing that day was epic. Snow covered the tracks/trails very quickly. It snowed all night and on Saturday we were treated to nice freshies. Shout out to the groomers at MSA – they were on it!
Saturday’s dinner theme was ‘taco night’ complete with margaritas, (thank you Eric Smeltzer) – and was really fun. Sunday proved to be the best weather day of the trip – bluebird skies and perfectly groomed trails. If you catch my drift (ha ha) it was incredible.
The club had planned for us to see the FSA World Cup races in Quebec City on the way home, but unfortunately the races were cancelled due to the rapidly changing rules of the coronavirus pandemic. While everyone did (pretty much) keep up-to-date with COVID-19 happenings at home and abroad, we truly did enjoy being in our own snow bubble. Thanks Stowe Nordic for the trip!
