Where life's a mountain not a beach

When I was a little kid, my brother went on a ski trip with his school to Kimberley and Fernie in BC and he brought me back this t-shirt with a picture of a mountain and it said "Where life's a mountain not a beach." Ever since I was a kid and we used to go to out west to Whistler or Lake Louise over March break I have always loved ski towns. I liked skiing all morning, sometimes into early afternoon and then coming in for lunch. My dad would make toasted peanut butter sandwiches, or toasted ham and cheese sandwiches (always on whole wheat bread) or we'd have soup. Somehow all those things always tasted better when we ate them on ski trips. I like how ski towns are called villages (or at least at Whistler and Mont Tremblant they are) and how they are full of people who are on vacation and usually seem very happy. There's a familiarity and a similarity to these types of places that I've noticed not just at Whistler and Tremblant but in Moab, Utah and Lake Tahoe too. I always wonder what it would be like to live in one of those places year round. To have this vacation land be your every day land. Every time I've been on an island/beach vacation I've wondered that too. I know normal life exists on those places but I think I'd find it difficult to go about my normal life when the beach and all that it promises - swimming, reading, relaxing, tanning - is so close.

Since 1997 when my parents got their condo in Mont Tremblant I have been there countless times, and I absolutely always love going there. Even though I haven't skied in over 10 years, I still love going to Tremblant in the winter. It's very pretty with all the snow, I like seeing all the skiiers, you can go skating and walking in the snow is fun. Best of all, I love the feeling of being warm inside and seeing all the snow outside. I always feel really safe and happy. I also love going to Tremblant in the summer - it's green and warm. I like looking at the lake and I always feel so relaxed.

This is the outside of the condo complex 

For all the happiness I've felt in ski towns, there is something very sad about a ski/vacation town with no one in it. A large part of those feelings of safety and happiness, I'm realizing, must come from feeling like other people are there feeling the exact same positive things as I am. I've been to Tremblant twice around the end of the first week of May (so around the 8/9/10th of May) and it's a really depressing time there! Don't go! S. and I went there for two nights in May 2010 and it rained - really hard - the whole time. Aside from going to the nearly deserted village to eat at Catherine's Crepes, we stayed inside and watched movies all day. That part was fun but being there when no one else was wasn't.  C. and I went last May in the middle of the week - a Wednesday - to benefit from this spa deal that the Scandinavian Spa was having on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during May and June. The Tremblant village was absolutely dead. Weirdly, many of the restaurants had 'closed for renovations' signs in their windows but there was no sign of renovations actually taking place. It was like this village wide joke that we didn't get. We ate at the one place that was open  - this Mexican restaurant - and we were the only ones in the restaurant.

Evidently the period between when the ski season ends and Victoria Day weekend when the summer season starts is the off season when Tremblant pretty much shuts down and there are very few tourists. D., his brother A., sister-in-law V., their daughter C., and I went to Tremblant the last weekend of October this past year and it was also a weird in-between time as the Fall season ends on Thanksgiving weekend and the ski season doesn't start until American thanksgiving. Almost all of the leaves had fallen too so we didn't get to enjoy the fall foliage. There were still a fair number of tourists around though, definitely better than May, and there were other people staying at the condo complex so it felt much better than going in early May. 

Another downside of ski towns is that food (and probably clothes and other things people shop for) are often ridiculously overpriced/expensive. However, the food is often really good in those places so people, like me, still go out to eat. Or at least the food is really good at Tremblant. I love Catherine's Crepes and this Italian place that I know the location of but not the name. And of course Tremblant has beaver tails! Beaver tails are the best! I always get Killaloe Sunrise which is a beaver tail with the usual cinnamon sugar mix plus lemon juice. So delicious! Even though you can get beaver tails in other places now (like the Toronto Zoo!), I like them the best in Mont Tremblant.

A Beavertail

Another highlight of Tremblant which I promised I'd talk about in my last blog post is the amazing swimming pool there called Aqua Club La Source. It is a very fun swimming pool which is big and has lots of balls and noodles you can play with/on. There is also a tarzan rope and one deep area you can jump into. The rest of the pool doesn't have a real deep end though - it goes to maybe 5'4 or so because I can stand there - which isn't good. But I just love that swimming pool! I've gone so many times and I always have a fun time. The last few times with D. have been especially fun because we've played catch and swum around and done more actual swimming.  La Source also has an outdoor hot tub and a steam room. I could write another post about steam rooms. They are amazing. This one is very very hot. It feels amazing. If you go to Tremblant, go to this pool! It's very fun!

So many windows! It's great!

Finally, I need to end this post by talking about one of my favourite things about Tremblant - the Cabriolet!! (Another reason Tremblant is sad in the off season (and the October off-season too): the Cabriolet doesn't run.) The Cabriolet is this gondola that goes really fast and is meant to transport skiiers from the bottom of the village up to where they get the chairlifts and big gondolas to the top of the mountain to ski. It's free and so much fun to ride! When I used to go to Tremblant with A., E. and L. back when I was 14 and 15 we used to ride the Cabriolet up and down multiple times. So fun!

The fabulous Cabriolet!

In closing, ski towns are lots of fun! I like going only so often though because then I appreciate them all the more. Going back to the title of this post though, it's so hard for me to say whether life's a mountain or a beach. For longer vacations (5 days or more, ideally a week or 8 days) I would undoubtedly choose a beach vacation. But I prefer ski towns for weekends just because you can pop in, relax, and pop out and feel great. With beach holidays, I always want to be there longer but with ski town weekends, though I would also like to stay longer a weekend is enough.

Outdoor hot tub at the Scandinavian Spa...so relaxing!