Mont-Tremblant recently closed its proverbial doors for the season. It is cold. What isn’t still frozen is muddy. Skiing is over, but those -2 degree mornings keep the bike in the garage. The age old of conundrum: what to do in-between seasons. Up here in Tremblant there are many options when not partaking in outdoor activities. A movie theatre on the mountain provides amusement, a delicious micro-brewery provides libations and succulent chicken burgers, Les Promenades Tremblant (that’s where we are located if you have no heard yet) provides shopping of all kinds, just to name a few. But what is a man (sic) to do athletically speaking? The beautiful shop and its beautiful Icebreaker, Arcteryx and North Face products can only keep me busy five days a week.

Then it struck me. I sell warm clothes. Maybe if I combined my two passions: cycling and outdoor technology, I could get out my bike and start riding on those chilly days. Straight to my wardrobe I went. Icebreaker 150 merino wool base layer (I like the Atlas longsleeve), Arcteryx synthetic midlayer (definitely the Atom LT) and a North Face softshell (my favourite Nimble Jacket) combine to make one warm, highly breathable happy camper (that’s me). Throw in some merino socks and beanie and I’m roaring to go. Now I just need to find 2 other people stupid enough to enjoy riding at zero degrees and I will be out the door.

Read the rest of Arundel, QC: Where Old Meets New

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I won’t bore you with the boring details of a 15 hour boring bus ride from London to the French Alps, but know that it was boring. What you need to know is that it was snowing when we arrived at the UCPA lodging in Val D’Isere. I had a week of guided skiing, hot meals and knee pain ahead of me.

Sunday:

Get our ski kit out of the bags and roll up to the mountain with generous grins on our faces. What have we gotten ourselves into: a Scotsman who has skied once in his life 10 years ago, my brother the ex-pat who now lives in Bristol and skis once every three years, and me the wannabe failed blog writer turned wannabe ski bum? Who cares, it is snowing and we want to carve up this mountain(s). We hit the slopes, none of which seem to look any easier than a black diamond, but nonetheless get warmed up. We quickly tire from the warm up and decide to call it a day. Finish the day with two valleys well skied. I say something stupid about how the terrain is not as immense as told. It will be skied out after two days… It has started to snow.

Monday:

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Everyone has fantasies.  Things they would like to accomplish before they die.  I certainly do.  I would like to finish hiking the Appalachian Trail with Juan, I would like to spend a summer working with the girls from The Boutique North Face in Montreal, cycle from Montreal to the Hershey’s Chocolate factory in Pennsylvania, actually give a public speech where the audience is naked, so on and so forth, you get the idea.  Many fantasies can be quite secretive, selfish and even ridiculous in others’ eyes, but I guess that is what defines them as our own personal fantasies.

Well this afternoon I can say with confidence that one of my fantasies has become reality.  I know, I know, anyone from Montreal is hoping that I will be spending time with those beautiful girls, but no unfortunately not- I’ve never been that lucky I’m afraid.  This afternoon I walked into my local coffee/bakery and found that a sandwich had been named after me (read: not me, but Altitude Sports).  Please keep your applause until the end.  That’s right, there is now officially an Altitude sandwich ready for your consumption at Les Cafés La Fayette in the Promenades de Mont-Tremblant development.

A little backstory if you’ll permit.  Like the sun sets in the West, I always order the same ham and cheese baguette sandwich for lunch.  It didn’t bother my undeveloped palate, but apparently it did bother the chef: “When the heck are you going to order something else?” I get thrown at me one lunchtime.  Momentarily flabbergasted, I stupidly mumble something about the rest of the menu not being to my liking.  Oops.  Anyone who knows me, knows that quick, idiotic retorts is part of my charm- needless to say I make many enemies with my charm.  But instead of getting a thrashing with a fresh baguette I got the ultimate question: what would I like?  Now asking this to a self-indulgent, pretentious, wannabe writer like myself, gets the old noggin rolling.

So here it ladies and gentleman, the pièce de resistance: it is healthy, filled with eggplant, grilled peppers and sun-dried tomatoes, partly wild with a cream cheese sauce, and undeniably raw and honest stuffed between La Fayette’s 9 grain bread.  To me it epitomizes who we are as Altitude Sports.  To be honest I have not figured out how we are going to ship the Altitude in the mail, but I will work on that at lunch after I lick my fingertips dry.

Thank you very much La Fayette for not only fulfilling a life long fantasy, but for creating a piece of culinary history.

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My calves ache and my quads shake, but my smile shines like a thousand LED headlamps.  It is certainly true that without pain you cannot have pleasure; however, this afternoon I learned once again that having both simultaneously can be a more fervent experience.  Let me, like I so often do, set the stage for you:

Alongside his wheeled, aluminum steed stands a man (trying desperately to remain a boy- that’s me), helmet in hand, modest calves coyly poking out from his cycling shoes.  A nervous smile escapes his lips.  Next to said man/boy is the owner of a great local bike store (Tremblant’s Cycles et Sports), and all-round pleasant fellow who had graciously accepted to take me for a “relaxed” ride around the nearby trails.  A beautiful sheep dog, barely bigger than her owner’s cast iron legs, waits for the proverbial bell to signal the start of what I believe to be an epic ride with a fierce, but relaxed, pace.  What have I gotten myself into?

Mark should have neither watched nor listened to this video before leaving Read more about the Ride

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Up until last night I would have said that The Sixth Sense was a fantastic movie. Great concept, good actors (yes, I know Bruce Willis was in it), so on and so forth. Tangentially, I would have argued that sleeping in an old farm house in the country, listening to nothing but the bed bugs singing, not a porch light in sight, was wondrous too.  Then I went to bed.

Not into pillow fights

Skip ahead about four hours. I’m curled up in my Superman onezy, sucking my thumb in the manliest way possible when all of a sudden I bolt upright frozen in fear.  Burned into my retinas was a woman.  No, she wasn’t wearing lingerie or in/around a pillow fight.  She was more of the dead variety.  Perhaps once she had participated in frisky fights involving pillows, but not recently in my opinion.  Her piercing eyes froze my shaking frame in place. Although not present when I awoke, I knew, like a cold sore, she was laying in wait for an inopportune moment to spring forth. Read more Ghost

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A good place to find fresh air

I do apologize for leaving you hanging like that in my previous article, but my unquenchable desire to use question marks got the best of me.  Here I am once again. So fret not my darlings, that fresh air did not choke my city lungs, nor did the sun burn my pasty skin.  Quite the contrary in fact: I am told I wheeze much less when watching my soaps, and that raw chicken skin look I was going for seems to have been remedied (my Udon noodle shade of white is much more becoming).

Oh, did I mention that Veronique and I are now waiting for your patronage at our new Mont-Tremblant Altitude Sports?  Well we are.  Seriously.  Come buy stuff.  I’m nicer than I look, I swear.  Ok, maybe not Monday mornings, so swing by Wednesday-ish.  I’ll make you a coffee.  Latte, not filter.  Just off the 117 after the grocery stores.

Max is going to be mad if I don’t incorporate some outdoor epiphany I have recently had, so I will get to the point: I love water.  Not playing with it, sillybilly, but drinking it!   Read more Back to Basics

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Big town kid, small town life

I can't imagine anything more amazing than a weekend in a small, picturesque town surrounded by tall, lush mountains, and that indistinguishable odour of 'non-city.' Mornings at the local bakery stuffing delicious pastries and coffee past your broad smile, waiting for the sun to warm enough for the inevitable discussion of what outdoor activity(ies) you and your buddies should partake in that day.

Read on about a big town kid

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I know what you guys are thinking. The life of a retail assistant is pretty damn glamorous. Only a select few, with highly honed skills, can make a living doing this. And yes, the perks are unparalleled. All this is without a doubt true; however, for every Montreal there is a Toronto. Our days can be draining, stressful and even panicked, I assure you. These adjectives are used in most cases when, out of the blue, your dreaded clichéd customer walks through the door. Usually you can discern a noticeable decrease in store temperature, the hairs on the back of your neck raise, and finally they make eye contact and approach.

The Crazy Customer:

CC: ...So as I was saying, these brown boots you have on the wall look an awful lot like the pair I was going to buy back in '73 when I was thinking about hiking the Australian Himalayas, but the brand name was spelled and pronounced differently.

Me: Pardon me sir, are you speaking to me? I don’t think we’ve met, are you certain you were talking to me? I believe the Himalayas are on the Asian continent if I am not mistaken.

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