We’ve spent the last couple of articles in our Staying Close To Home series focusing on Ontario, but this time out we’re off to the beautiful Laurentian Mountains in Quebec. The Laurentian Mountains are home to numerous ski resorts and the famous Tremblant Ski Resort – known for its indisputable charm, picturesque landscape and of course the five-star skiing.
According to the website, “a majority of the visitors to Mt Tremblant will return more than once” and true-to-form, this is our 3rd time here – twice in the summer for IndyCar (ChampCar) races at Circuit Mont-Tremblant, and this time in the autumn. With so many good memories during our previous visits, it was only a matter of time before we returned.
Click HERE to go to the official website for the area.
* Disclaimer: Opinions are our own. We were not paid for this article, nor were goods or services received for free or discounted *
Related: Staying Close To Home – Exploring Sentier des cimes Laurentides – The Treetop Walk Coming Soon
Located roughly 2 hours north of downtown Montreal and 7 1/2 hours from our home in the Niagara Region, it’s well worth the travel time to reach this year-round wonderland. Surprisingly it’s a very easy and straight-forward drive to Tremblant – just make sure you don’t take the ‘via Ottawa” version of the trip if you’re following GoogleMaps or Waze. A large portion of that journey is only 2 lane highway and you can’t cruise along at 125 km/h on an 80 km/h road to shorten the travel time!
To get the most of our weekend we left at 5am (5:15 to be exact) and sailed through Toronto in 2 hours with light traffic. By 10:15 we were at the Ontario/Quebec border and by 11:45 arrived at our Airbnb on the shore of Lake Tremblant. Travel time was 7 ½ hours, door to door with one pit stop for fuel, one for Starbucks and 30 minutes for lunch at the border, before the final sprint to Mont-Tremblant.
Before leaving Mont-Tremblant the weather people kept telling us it was going to be cool and wet for most of our time there, but in reality it was warm-ish and beautiful the entire time. Only on our trip home did we encounter the rain we’d been afraid of having to deal with – we’ll take the win!
Before You Go
As per usual for us, we’d planned this trip pretty-much to maximize exploring and minimizing needless down time. Knowing we were going to be there for the afternoon, we planned on doing Sentier des cimes (about 20 minutes away) and take in the sunset, thereby leaving our adventures in Mont-Tremblant for all of Saturday and Sunday morning.
We can’t stress this enough: make sure you visit the Tremblant official activities website – HERE. You’ll find a ton of stuff to do in the immediate area surrounding Mont-Tremblant as well as discounts for multi-activity tickets. There are things do year-round here and this site gives you lots of ideas of what to do and even when you might actually want to visit. For example, we knew it was getting colder, so the boat trip was ruled out because we thought it would be pretty cold on the water. Summertime? Of course we’d take that trip.
We decided on the 2 Activities tickets – $45 each, including taxes and more taxes. We went with mini-golf and the Mountain Cable Car / Express Gondola to the top of the mountain. Not only did we save money, when we got to the Gondola – it’s located at the top of the village, we just walked up to the lift and onto the car while well over a hundred people were standing in line to purchase their ticket!
When you book on line, they’ll send you an email with the ticket – a QR Code. You can print it out and/or put it on your phone. That’s how you skip the sucker line. You have 10 days to use it, so there’s no panic to having to use it on any one particular day if your plans change. As for the mini-golf, you have to book your time online – we waited till the Saturday morning to decide when we were going to go. It’s pretty flexible even after booking your timeslot though. More on that later…let’s rewind to Friday afternoon…
Friday Afternoon/Evening
After arriving at our Airbnb we took in the incredible views from our patio across to the mountain and the resort (over to the right).
The weather couldn’t have been better – forget jackets, it’s tee shirt weather… not what we were expecting. We went back into the town of Tremblant (on Route 117, 10 minutes away) – not the resort, and grabbed some beer and food for dinner. We’d planned to eat one night at the apartment and one night at the resort, but were flexible on which day. There are three grocery stores right beside each other, we chose Metro because we knew what we would expect – except it wasn’t. They had a huge beer section – including a big walk-in fridge. That’s something we never get in Ontario, plus you can buy cases of 24.
Prices for some beer are considerably cheaper in Quebec, but others are outrageously expensive. Labatt’s/Budweiser is $20/case (less), but + tax + deposit. Coors Light (who drinks that swill?!) is $69 for 60 bottles. In Ontario it’s $108 – on sale! For another example there’s a great Italian beer – Birra Moretti. In Ontario we pay $3.50/can (taxes in), at Metro it was $4.50 + deposit + tax!! But the same beer was on sale in bottles – $36 for 24 ($15 off!!!!). In Ontario if we have a beer sale it’s maybe $2.50 off a case of 24.
Wine prices were same or higher than Ontario, and alcohol at SAQ was same or more than LCBO. Last time we were here it was much cheaper than Ontario. Grocery prices were a bit more expensive and in some cases 50% more than in Ontario.
After dropping the stuff off at the apartment we went out to our planned expedition for the late afternoon/evening – Sentier des cimes.
Gail found this during one of her sleuthing internet searches. There are eleven similar towers throughout Europe, this is the only one in North America at the moment, making it quite unique. We planned our expedition for the late afternoon/evening specifically to take in the sunset on top of the trees. We were originally going to include it in this article, but after experiencing it and looking at the number of pictures we took, we decided to make it a standalone article. So click HERE to read all about this special tower in the trees.
Sentier des cimes Laurentides – The Treetop Walk (coming soon)
What3Words – https://what3words.com
Note: We’re going to be giving a lot of What3Words addresses from this point forward. (Add https://w3w.co before the 3 words to view in your browser.) If you’ve never used this free app, you’re missing out. It is far more accurate than Google Maps because they’ve broken the entire world down into 3 foot squares so you can actually pinpoint exactly where to go, using only 3 words. You can also use it on your desktop computer. It’s integrated with GoogleMaps, Waze and Bing Maps too. It’s easy to find, share and save precise locations.
For entrances to building/parking lots it’s superb…try it!
Saturday
After an exceptional night’s sleep we were all ready to go to the village and climb the mountain followed by some mini-golf. I went online and booked our tee off time for 4pm.
Arriving at the resort area (///confiding.gladly.almond), it looked a bit different from the last time we were here. There are a number of parking lots to choose from and once committed to entering the village area you are in a one way traffic system making it easy to navigate. We ended up going around a couple of times to get the lay of the land. Arriving around noon was also a very popular time for other tourists as the parking lots filled up quickly.
Parking
Here’s the best way to park… (actual entrance locations, below)
VIP parking is right in front of the Resort/Village. It can easily cost $45 to park there!! Or you can walk 10 metres and park for free. Hmm, what to do. The lots are clearly marked and P1 is right beside the VIP lot. You actually pass P2 (on the right) before the other parking lots. (EV Charge points are also located there).
After doing a lap, we ended up parking in P3. It’s free and the shuttle bus (also free) drops you off right at the entrance of the village. The bus runs every 5 minutes or so. P4 is for the Casino – about 5 minutes away, and we have no idea where any of the other parking lots are located because we couldn’t find them!
P1 ~ ///burgers.velocities.purrs
P2 ~ ///headsets.incisive.deacon
P3 ~ ///beard.oaks.scrapbooks
Things to do for the entire family…
Once at the resort entrance, there’s a mini gondola ride – Le Cabriolet (///burgers.velocities.purrs ) It’s free and very quick, no matter how long the line-up – and it takes you all the way up to the top of the village and the base of the Mountain Cable Car/Express Gondola. Once there you have a plethora of things to do and see as well as plenty of restaurants (and toilets too). Check out our video of the ride…
The easiest thing to do is take the Cabriolet up, and meander down the steep walkway – it requires less energy. But that’s not how we roll, we walked up, wandered around, and then took the Express Gondola to the top of the mountain. After that, we wandered back down to the bottom (stopped for lunch on the way), then took Cabriolet back up and it was just a short walk to the mini-golf.
Mountain Cable Car / Express Gondola ( ///split.depictions.rhythm )
This was our main focus for the day, we really wanted to go up and see the sites from above. Fortunately the day was absolutely perfect with a bright blue sky and a comfortable temperature for hiking etc. As mentioned earlier, we just walked up to the entrance to the cable car, showed our QR Code to the operator and jumped onto the gondola. They can accommodate up to 6 people, but there’s no fear of having to share it with strangers, they don’t try to cram as many people as possible into the gondola.
The ride up is spectacular and you look down on the crazy people that are in various forms of regret for taking such a steep climb either for exercise or to save some money. We wondered if there were any paramedics around cause an awful lot of people were only ½ way up and they looked like they couldn’t possibly make it back down. BTW – you don’t get a free ride back down – it’s a 2-way ticket.
Once we got out of the cable car we landed in a large flat area with the restaurant to the right and various ski lifts from other areas of the mountain as well as other adventures such as Ziptrek Ecotours, Apprentice Falconer and Birds Of Prey Show. To the left (we didn’t see it till later) is the path to the 360° Tower ( ///twos.laterally.upshot ). The temperature dropped a good 7-10°C between the base and the top of the mountain.
We headed off to the right and found the lookout point and the huge chair. Plenty of people were sitting around eating their packed lunch or they grabbed some food from the food truck [Le Nomade ] (///toucan.sheared.boulders) or on site restaurant (///fitter.capture.moral ) and then enjoyed the view.
We went off looking for the 360° Lookout Tower (following the signs) and ended up watching people on the Ziptrek Tour (///ticker.thrashing.uninvited ), but no 360° Lookout Tower – just a dead end. Asking the Zip Line person where the tower was, he pointed in the opposite direction and told us to look for the flag.
Climbing back up the hill to the centre of the mountain – there it was! Waay over there… NOT where the signs told us it would be… about 500m away, we headed off at a leisurely pace, passing the Falcon Adventure and arrived close to the tower and more helpful signs. Right or left?
We went left and didn’t get any closer to it, but the views were amazing! We spotted a tiny sign pointing into the woods that the tower was that-a-way… and after scrambling over some rocks on a deer path – there it was!!! Climbing the stairs, it didn’t feel particularly sturdy as is shifted in the wind. They view was worth the climb and we could spot our apartment located across the lake easily from the tower (when we got back to our apartment we could easily spot the flag from our patio, but previously we hadn’t see it).
Village
We headed back to the village for a late lunch. Apparently everyone else was doing likewise as all the restaurants were very busy with long line-up’s to get in. It wasn’t outrageously busy with people in the village, but there were plenty of signs at restaurants and stores that told us there was a big shortage of staff and please be patient… that’s not looking good for the upcoming ski season!
At the base of the village we found Starbucks was closed due to staff shortages and there were a number of closed outlets coffee shops and restaurants dotted throughout the village.
We weren’t willing to wait in line for 30-40 minutes to get in to the restaurants, so we headed off in search of something quick and spotted a perfect solution to our needs… and Gail’s diet restrictions – Fluide Juice Bar – beside La Pizzateria and just around the corner from mini-golf. (approx. location) ///stereotype.should.beekeepers
Mini-golf Le Petit Géant ( ///outsell.turnover.gadgetry )
Around 3pm I started getting text messages about our mini-golf appointment. I had to confirm our 4 o’clock tee off time – which I did and got confirmation from them. Then I got constantly bombarded with text messages every 10 minutes or so reminding us about the booking time, and around 3:30 I got a text telling us we’d missed our time slot and they’d given it to someone else – we’d have to re-book!! WT Hell!!?? We showed up at 3:45 expecting to get a hassle, but she was very nice and told us not to worry we were up next. Then I got a text (from her) that we were – up next.
The course was right in the middle of the village directly below Le Cabriolet and was challenging and fun to play. It was a bit tired and needs updating to be honest on some holes, while others are pristine. It was also very busy, and although they were spacing people/booking at 5 minute intervals, 10 minutes would still have been problematic – it’s the same problem with just about every mini-putt golfing around the world. Still, we weren’t in a hurry and we finished about an hour later.
Sunday
We returned to the village on Sunday morning to buy some gifts and souvenirs we’d seen yesterday. At 10 o’clock it was considerably empty compared to Saturday, but all the shops were open and we quickly grabbed what we’d come for and headed off home.
Before leaving we grabbed a coffee and donut at Beignes D’Antan ( ///back.fetches.deduce) and some maple syrup souvenirs next door at Cabane à sucre de la Montagne ( ///frolicking.accredited.escalates ), before making a washroom break at the Information Center ( ///gals.broke.renewed )
Things To Do – https://www.tremblant.ca/things-to-do
* Map of Village – ///parsnip.benefactor.primrose
* Information Center – ///gals.broke.renewed
* Starbucks – ///jumped.metabolism.fairest
* SAQ (Liquor Store) – ///sweeteners.sprinkles.deploy
* Mountain Cable Car – ///split.dipictions.rhythm
* Mini-golf Le Petit Géant – ///outsell.turnover.gadgetry
* Ziptrek Ecotours – ///pleads.aimless.commute
* Rock Climbing Wall – ///acorns.ridges.romancing
Kids Stuff
* Splash Pad ///piped.self.pleaded
* Eurobungy ///modesty.breaching.allegations
* Zip Lining Kids Tremblant ///stocky.flout.resolved
* Studio Créatif Tremblant – Paint your own pottery studio ///requesting.tastefully.clearer
* Playground ///ailing.bicycling.handrail
* Skyline Luge Mont Tremblant ///fattening.portraying.squirted
* Kidz Club ///estimated.serene.gutsy
Final Thoughts
We had a great time at Mont-Tremblant and its surrounding area. There’s plenty to explore and keep you amused/busy within 10-15 minutes of the village. Going a little further afield – no more than 30 minutes in any direction, there are several nice towns and villages – all with the ski-feeling. Once we’d cleared Montreal the trip to and from Mount-Tremblant was ideal with plenty of mountains and scenery.
Cyclists are plentiful around the entire area and we’d imagine an even bigger nightmare to deal with during the summer months. Stop signs? Nope, not for us! Sidewalks? Yep. Road? Yep. Middle of the road? Yep. 4-abreast? Of course! Pedestrians? What’s that?
Sentier des cimes Laurentides was definitely something we’d recommend if you’re in the area. Would we go back? Absolutely!
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Text: Iain Shankland / Images: Iain Shankland / Gail Shankland
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About TravelBloggers…
Iain & Gail started blogging in order to inspire and motivate people to travel the world from their perspective – specializing in having the most fun while using the least amount of money…travelling on the cheap without sacrificing comfort.
** In the end you will only regret the things you didn’t do **
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