TR: A Trip to the far East, Exploring Americas Hat + Stowe Shots

[samthaman]

A Trip to the far East, Exploring Americas Hat


Participants: backcountryben, gpetrics, me, and 3 DOC'rs
Purpose: Penetrate deep into enemy territory to the far North East. Scout campsites, future ski goals, and record the habits of the local population.
Soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvfAA...layer_embedded
Directions: Drive North, Turn to the Right, Drive East, arrive at destination.
Further plans: none

Things got weird as we approached the border:


They stayed weird for the entire time we were in bizzaro-america.

The first firm evedence that we were actually in Quebec:


Every car had a trailer hitch and most seemed to be towing a run down trailer with a random assortment of possessions.

Soon after the last shot was taken, the sun went down and all the Canadians went to bed. The roads were clear and we drove onward and eastward.

Fuel and food ran low just as the highway ran out to the east of Quebec City. We sought emergency provisions at the american embassy , but for some strange reason they didn't want american money. Confused and hungry we got back on the highway.


We arrived in the Parc du Gaspe at 130 american time (not sure what that is in metric), threw down the tent and jumped in. The snow acted like a memory foam mattress, made a nice impression of our bodies and then never rebounded (very un-foam like). After a night of tossing and turning and being cold we rolled out of the tent at 7am to find ourselves in the middle of a field surrounded by heated, reservation-only cabins, no where near the tenting area. Realizing we had been spotted, and potentially compromised by the locals, we beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the cars.

Our next stop was the Chic-Choc's themselves, to try and do some skiing.

We expected an empty wilderness, so we were bewildered when we encountered this on the hike into the Serpentine hut:



Still, the skiing didn't look too bad:


Aparantly all those hikers were going to the party that was taking place at the serpentine hut. An avalanche awareness event of some kind. We were clearly under dressed however, so we took a wide line around the hut and headed for the mountains.



... and on up. I could get pretty used to EC alpine snow.


Enough sitting around though, time to show these silly canadians how to ski




We were the first people up the patrollers bowl that day and thought that we might be in the wrong area due to the lack of tracks. By the time we got done with that run though, the mountain was swarming with people all being weird in their own uniquely inexplicable way. We witnessed people hiking down with skis on, booting up next to a boot pack, hiking in dress shoes etc. It was far stranger even than Tux during the inferno.

We hiked back up for another lap, but wanted to push further out and avoid all the crowds.



Did i mention that these mountains are flat on top? even the mountains are weird in Quebec.


We had spotted a short but very steep looking bowl at the north end of the patrollers bowl.



Greg skiing the short steeps



This place blows my mind. There is virtually limitless unskilled terrain in every direction for as far as the eye can see, but everyone skis right on top of each other at the mouth of the patrollers bowl.





We stopped for a snack then decided to make our exit back to the car by climbing the face that was visible in the background in the last two photos. First we needed a little snack.

Ben, enjoying the taste of freedom.


So we climbed up and got ready to drop off the back side. For some reason they have "Caribou Closures" around large parts of the park. It seemed really weird to us though, because Caribou will probably go wherever they want, and it'd be a hard rule to enforce. Silly canadians...

No Caribou here though


or here


or here




Just about the best spring skiing run I've ever had.


Greg following down the same pitch.


"Ohhhhh, you mean the mountains are closed to people to protect the caribou? that makes a lot more sense, I mean how could you even stop the caribou. How dumb of us to accidentally just ski that closed area...."

We decided to go check out the park's high class hotel. Unabe to afford to stay there or eat there, we enjoyed it from the outside.



We got a few looks for this.


What do you want?


The next day, after another cold night on the snow stealth camping, we decided to head for Mt. Hogsback. With temps at around 30, clouds in the sky, and a front coming through. No one except Ben was very psyched to ski frozen corn.

Weighing the options.



We narrowly avoided the dreaded "bail-triangle" (TM, backcountryben), where everyone keeps their mouth shut and does a trip that no-one wanted to do. Rather than following up an awesome corn day with ice and a late arrival home, we decided to get on the road early and stop in Quebec City on the way home.

We saw a few more weird sights on the way home though.


"sweet, no tax on hors in the duty free zone"....


So. All in all I think 6 of us drove two cars around 1400 miles for 3 amazing corn runs in the Chic-Chocs, and a mind-numbingly weird road-trip there and back. I've tried to convey it, but there is no way to properly show you just how strange the Quebecois are. Maybe ben and Greg can chime in with a few more anecdotes.

Fun Facts About Quebec :

- It is not unusual to find someone pushing a large handcart into oncoming traffic on the highway.

- Pajamas, down booties, and enormous gaiters are traditional camp dress in quebec.

- In Quebec city, if you dont have a large white tent as a garage, you are a loser.

- Cops take croissant breaks, not donut breaks.

- When an american passes you in the skin track, it is acceptable to try and race them.

- Animals on road signs have unusually large apendages.

- Trailers are preferable to trunks or roof racks, no car is too small to pull one


Now the Stowe shots:

I've been sitting on these for a week or so, they were from one of the upslope storms that dumped a few inches on Stowe. We caught a bit of higher elevation pow before it all turned to mush in the afternoon.

Chris, a snowboarder was so excited for the pow, he gave skiing a try.


allen, hiding in the shadows.


Greg setting up for a photo under the rime ice.


Allen, in desperate need of brighter clothing.




Where's Waldo?


Chris reconsidering his choice of gear.


Hope you enjoyed all that, Greg and I sure had a good time documenting the madness.

thanks for looking,

Sam

[uppernotmaster]

Start to finish that was fantastic. Thanks, great Friday afternoon read.

[schwerty]

Start to finish that was fantastic. Thanks, great Friday afternoon read.

My thinking, exactly.

[skier666]

3-2-1 dropping.....

[buckethead]

goddamn guys!
first the circumnavigation of mt wash and then you throw up the chic chocs w/mansfield pow desert??

wow. you guys are monsters
and the pics are fantastic!

the chic chocs look most incredible...bonus that the canadians all like to ski the same bowl.

and fun facts to boot.

[trainnvain]

You like the poutine, no?

No. But I like your corn!



OK, so I like the poutine too.

[roark]

excellent work

[HankScorpio]

awesome trip. i forget how amazing skiing the east is when you drive far enough north for it. top notch.

[Doremite]

Already dropped props over on T4T, but need to chime in here to. Epic work once again. Not quite 8,000K slog on big george epic, but that could be all time for east coast TRs so no real need to compare to the bar. Big up. Two times.

[Grizzly Adams]

The only thing that could make this thread more satisfying is a shot of a big steaming pile of poutine...

[patg]

that monster truck/dinosaur place is totally wacked out. i didnt know what to think the first time i saw that place

[K_C]

Maybe Bryan Adams was performing



Between this TR and the Mt. Wash excursion TR I've gotten zero work accomplished this afternoon....Thanks !

[telepow]

one of the best of the season from you guys- and that's a pretty impressive track record!

[coreyb]

dang. you guys are my personal east-coast heroes. for reals.

[ex-powderbroker]

best while enjoyed listening to that soundtrack, thanks for the awesome TR.

[backcountry1pr]

haha way to kill it. weird stuff.

[GotamaRider]

btw that front you ran from brought 50cm...

[gpcharles]

and a fatality

[gpcharles]

on a lighter note, i think our identities may have been compromised while we were in the Great White North!

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizen...itizenship.asp

_________________

also, a few things i thought of that confused me:

i still struggle to come to terms with the giant steamer behind our car in the mt albert parking lot someone left (with tp) when there was a nice heated "sanitation facility" 50 meters away

i also don't understand why they have all the street sign distances listed using time rather than length measurement. every sign is like "turn coming up in 250m" or "arret 50m" or "road work 500m." the thing is though every single sign is way off with the times! the turn comes up in like 1/100th of what is listed. go figure! then again, we didn't see any arretts until we got to the patrollers bowl, so who knows.

[MadPatSki]

Aparantly all those hikers were going to the party that was taking place at the serpentine hut. An avalanche awareness event of some kind. We were clearly under dressed however, so we took a wide line around the hut and headed for the mountains.

Lucky received an email reading this event. He told me about it, not sure what type of event it was, but it was geared toward people climbing and skiing skills. A clientele just like you guys.

I'm not certain, but from what Lucky told me, the organizers wanted to sensitize the Quebec government about possible activities in the Park. Many areas are off limits right now.

The person on the right side of the pic with the beard is the guy from Vertigo Adventures. He also certified for avy awareness courses. That's the person that gave our course last Winter.

[Vt-Freeheel]

I need to return to the chic chocs, as i miss the hundred tuckermans and poutine. Thanks for the memories of Patrollers/serpentine area.

[mc_roon]

sweet to see you guys are still getting some good skiing in. also, i think i will be seeing you in about a month samthaman...

[Tick]

i think we were up there that same weekend. if so, you may or may not have missed a 2 foot dump by a day.

we also skied the caribou closures, but further back from Patrollers on the grand curve. the Quebequas we were with said they rarely enforce the rule but do occasionally give tickets. we decided to go for it since a ticket from way the hell up there would make a nice souviner!

saw you had to camp on the sly... the Mont Albert campground was pretty nice and damn cheap. plus they have hot showers and a heated shitter!

nice pictures, pretty awesome place!