Gray Rocks

Well as expected Dan, Brodie and I had a fantastic time camping and skiing on Gray Rocks. Gray Rocks is a great little ski hill near Mont Tremblant, Quebec, the only catch is they went bankrupt last year so the only way up is climbing skins or snowshoes which suits us just fine.

We left Friday at around 6 pm under a cold blue sky and temperatures hovering around -10 C. A lot of preparation and planning had gone into this moment and it felt great to push back. Of course we turned around a few minutes later because I forgot my gloves but that's the way she goes. We arrived in pitch black at the foot of the hill and found a parking spot right next to the abandoned chair lift in a snow drift. Perfect. We had a pretty good idea of where we would find a campsite by studying an excellent topo map of the area. After a bit of a Charlie Foxtrot trying to get everything I needed on top of my back (including some last minute beer purchases) we started up the trail.

Now it started getting interesting. My pack was so heavy it was cutting off all the circulation to my arms rendering my poles useless. Thankfully, we took our time and only trekked about half a kilometer. We turned into the woods and down a slope and found a small area for a tent. Now the fun begins, it's time tramp down your site, set up your tents, clear brush, gather wood and start a fire. No time to film, we worked at a steady pace for a few hours careful not to sweat. The last thing on your mind is the cold because your mind is racing and full of adrenaline. Pretty soon we had a nice fire, tents and sleepings bags all set and we were munching on fire roasted sausages and sipping Heineken. Success.

The next day we woke up to a perfect winters day with wall-to-wall sunshine and temperatures around -5. There was a system moving in that would bring +8 temperatures and 47 mm of rain the day after we left. Here is a clip of me enjoying being on top of mountain:



and another of our campsite:



The first day was really incredible. We could not have had nicer weather and we ran into plenty of nice people enjoying a snowshoe or ski. I think we did about five runs in total and had a delicious hot lunch with a fire and a few wobbly pops. That night we spent the last hour of daylight gathering wood and prepared a huge fire. We were so tired I think we were probably in bed by about nine.

Sleeping worked out pretty well, lots of layers including a toque and scarf and I stayed warm all night. We did end up with a lot of condensation on the insides of the tent which was unpleasant but not a huge issue. The following day we slept in packed up camp first thing so we were not stuck with packing up after being exhausted from skiing. This was definitely the right thing to do and will be part of our routine from now on. The biggest problem we encountered was keeping the liquid (beer and water) from freezing solid. The best way was to keep a 1 L bottle of water in your sleeping bag. Overall we were very well prepared and happy with the location of our site for subsequent trips. Here is a clip of my last run:



Hopefully we will get a chance to do a few more weekends this winter. The weather so far has not been cooperating, we got 45 mm of rain which melted a ton of snow and closed the canal. Next dump of snow we get you know where I'll be.