OK, I'm back!
As usual, I had it all wrong, lol
We didn't go to Mont St Anne at all, we went to some other place called Owl's Head.
And it wasn't 6 hours away like I somehow got in my head... it was 8 hours away. I drove the whole stretch last light, AFTER a full day's of riding. I think that is the longest stretch of driving I've ever done all at once, I am feeling very fucked up this morning lol
Owl's Head is a VERY weird place. It is not some commercial resort like most other places I've been... it was built 50 years ago by this one dude and his wife, and they still manage it today, he's in his 80's. It's all crazy, but he must be doing something right because hands down it was the nicest people I have ever encountered in all the snowboarding I've ever done. EVERYONE was super-friendly, honest, helpful, happy... the front desk, the guy who cooked breakfast at 8am, the maintenance guy the lady who worked the bar... it was almost weird to be honest. Lots of talk about how they skied here all their lives and love it, etc.
I had a preconception from limited experience that french people don't like when outsiders don't speak french, but EVERYONE was perfectly bilingual and showed absolutely no signs of annoyance when having to speak english.
The snow SUCKED, however. They said it was the worst snowfall ever in 50 years.
But I was with my kids, and they are still learning so we had some easy beginner runs that they mades now on and groomed and they were perfectly happy. Overnight we had a decent snowfall and everything was soft again in the morning.
If these guys ever got a real serious dump of snow, it might be a pretty badass little secret spot.
Rural Quebec is really cool, I haven't explored it enough (scared of french people, lol). It really is like a different country, everything is quaint and quiet and picturesque
The church you see in the foreground is an actual working Monastery, there are monks in there that supposedly make some awesome cheese. I didn't get any, however. Maybe if I go back I'll go pay those monks a visit and taste their cheese.
