From Finland to the Parc des Appalaches, same scenery, same powder!

We both love skiing, Gérard especially, but we’ve never been big fans of downhill ski resorts… We prefer the freedom of off-piste mountain skiing, away from the crowds. So when we heard that the Grande Coulée sector in the Parc des Appalaches was dedicated to this activity, we immediately decided to go and discover it!

A few years ago, we were lucky enough to live in a refuge in the heart of the Parc des Appalaches all winter, so there’s no shortage of activities nearby! One day after a storm, we decided to tackle the Grande Coulée mountain, which we’d already seen on several occasions. As soon as we pulled into the car park, near the Restaurant Spa Appalaches, we realised what we were in for. Grande Coulée, 853m high, rises majestically in front of us. We can already make out the thick layer of immaculate white powder that covers it, which makes us all the more excited to get going!

Right from the start, the trail takes us into the snow-covered forest. The vegetation is fairly low and spaced out, allowing the occasional ray of sunshine to warm our faces a little. As we make our way along, the landscape reveals itself a little more behind us. First the village of Saint-Paul-de-Montmigny, then a large part of the Montmagny Regional County Municipality. The well-marked yellow signs lead us through the birch trees to the foot of the downhill slopes. From there, things get serious: the trail gets steeper and you really have to push to get going, but we’re sporty and we like a challenge!

In the space of a few meters, the environment around us changes radically. Trees that were slightly covered in snow are transformed into great ghosts of snow! And it’s not just the atmosphere that becomes Arctic, the temperature too. When we stop, we realise that we are literally surrounded by white everywhere we look! The green of the fir trees has disappeared.

It’s a truly magical setting that reminds Roxanne a lot of Finnish Lapland, no less! It has to be said that this sector of the Grande Coulée benefits from a kind of micro-climate that provides it with large amounts of powder snow.

The mountain seems to be asleep under this thick layer of snow. We, on the other hand, feel so alive in this environment.

We soon reached the summit of the Grande Coulée. Although the Parc des Appalaches is an inhabited natural park, you get the impression of being far from everything, alone in the world, in a sort of parallel universe. Here, nature is the master and guardian of the place, and only the distant sound of wind turbine blades reminds us of nearby civilisation. The views are breathtaking. You’re facing a panorama in which the St Lawrence River is overlooked by a thin mist, and the mountains of the north shore stand out in the distance.