Skiing and aperitif at Club Med Québec Charlevoix

Last spring, a journalist from New York Times lived the experience offered by Club Med Québec Charlevoix. Here is his report.

The lady at the reception of Club Med Québec Charlevoix asks: “Have you ever been to Club Med? She attaches to my wrist a brown bracelet with a white disc bearing the mark of the company’s trident. This magic token will unlock the all-inclusive ski resort offers for the next three days.

“Usually you have the beaches, the pools and the piña coladas,” she notes, listing the attractions at the company’s well-known resorts. “But here”—she waves in the lobby of the newly opened resort at the foot of Canada’s Massif de Charlevoix—“everything is inside. You never need to go out. »

“Um, except for skiing,” I protest, imagining myself locked in a bubble of buffets, forced camaraderie, and variety shows for three days.

“Except for skiing,” she nods, perhaps seeing the dread in my eyes.

Opened last December, Charlevoix has been Club Med’s first North American ski resort in decades, though it offers more than 20 ski destinations worldwide, including several in the Alps. The Massif de Charlevoix offers impressive terrain, the highest vertical drop east of the Rockies (just over 2500 ft). It is an “upside-down” mountain, that is, it falls from a summit rather than rising from a base, and it can sometimes feel as if one is about to ski — from one of its 53 runs — directly into the St. Lawrence River below.

But it lacked the type of accommodation that turns a ski mountain into a destination resort, and that’s where Club Med comes in. “It’s a destination that needed Club Med,” says Carolyne Doyon, president and general manager of the company in North America and the Caribbean. The company’s goal is to follow Charlevoix in 2025 with a new resort at Snowbasin, Utah, another mountain known for its excellent skiing and lack of lodging.

The resort stretches along a ridge overlooking the St. Lawrence, at the foot of the Massif. Two buildings are dedicated to hotel rooms (the more expensive “Exclusive Collection” rooms have their own lounge and section of the resort). Activities take place in the central building, with one floor dedicated to the pool, gyms and spa, another to winter activities including ski rentals, ski lockers and kids clubs, and yet another to restaurants, bars and a theater for shows.

My superior family room was about US$2300 (about C$3100) for two people, for three nights of ski-in ski-out accommodation, including a ski locker, all meals and drinks, plus daily lessons if we wanted them. . The accommodation itself is well designed, with a bedroom that can fit a large bed and not much else, a smaller bedroom with two twin beds, a bathroom with a sink and a bath/shower , and separate toilets. (“We did a lot of polling, Mr. Doyon said. The bathroom is important.”)

My friend Julie and I arrived between the end of the ski day and the start of dinner. Canada had only recently relaxed its COVID-19 regulations and patrons were taking advantage of that freedom, arriving straight from the pool in terrycloth bathrobes and Crocs and carrying drinks from the bar to large communal tables. With the kids running around and challenging each other at ping pong, we felt like we were at the end of a bar mitzvah.

After getting equipped with ski gear and putting it away in our locker, we decided to try the resort’s ice rink. I saw myself as Sonja Henie gliding under the lights, but the rink was just a sad uncleared rectangle, with rough ice under our skates. Maybe we would be better off inside.

By then, Le Marché had opened its doors, with stations offering steaks, grilled fish, plain pizzas and pastas to which you could add the sauce of your choice, small salads, local smoked salmon, a bean soup, desserts such as Saint Honoré tart, raspberry coulis with meringue. Waiters roamed the room and served red or white wine.

And it was snowing. In fact, it was still snowing the next morning, with no sign of stopping. And the Massif gondola was right outside the door. It was time to ski.

The mountain naturally divides into three sections, with a corridor of blues in the middle, some nice bumps to the east, and long, steep black and double black runs to the west.

I quickly fell in love with glade skiing, hurtling down a slope named after Canadian snowboarder Dominique Maltais and chasing powder between the trees on L’Archipel and La Dérive.

I was having so much fun that I didn’t bother to go back to the resort for dinner with Julie, I settled for a granola bar at one of the restaurants on the mountain and skied all the way back to the resort. when the ski lifts close at 4 p.m.

Usually, during a ski trip, the following hours are devoted to a bath in the spa, then to the preparation of supper or to an outing to the restaurant, before going to bed. But Club Med has its own rhythm. First, when skiers return for the day, around 3:30 p.m., there’s the After, a display of goodies in the main lobby. A little later, it’s the turn of the Apéro, made up of meats, cheeses, raw vegetables and dips. While these dishes—and drinks—were being served, singers performed on the theater stage, followed, perhaps, by a children’s circus performance. There was more adult entertainment later, but I didn’t stay up long enough to watch it.

The next morning I joined a group of intermediate to advanced skiers for a lesson. It was unlike any I’ve had in the States. Jack, our instructor, didn’t chat with his students on the chairlift. In fact, he didn’t even sit with us. At the top of the mountain, he was talking about a technique to think about: where do we start our turns? Which part of our foot had the most contact with the snow? Then we went straight back down to the bottom of the mountain and took the drag lift back up, with no commentary on our performance.

I had planned to meet Julie at Club Med for dinner. Upon entering I was greeted by Club Med employees in My Little Pony costumes dancing to disco music and serving Tia Maria flavored coffee, which was another new experience for me.

At the buffet, I had salmon with arugula, a beetroot salad with orange and feta, and grilled vegetables. I finished with a cookie and a pecan pie. Compared to the cheeseburger wrapped in foil and kept under a heat lamp that I had eaten the last time I went skiing, this was downright luxurious.

Through the resort windows that night, we could see family-sized SUVs with luggage boxes on top rolling and backing up along the driveway to the main entrance to Charlevoix. It was spring break in Ontario, and families were flocking. The pace picked up at the ski school office. At supper, Le Marché was in turmoil.

The next morning, a tide of parents and children poured into the children’s area, with families queuing outside the door. At the Market, which offers a view of the river, the sun shining on the St. Lawrence was dazzling. Although we had to leave that day, we could stay and ski until 3 p.m., so I got back on the slopes. By then the powder from our first day of skiing was long gone, but the sun and the blue of the river were their own reward.

It turned out, indeed, that everything was inside.

Except for skiing.

This article was originally published in the New York Times.