Escalade Backbone, Tyroparc and the Passe-Montagne school are thinking big for 2023 with their recreational tourism project of “trendy” shelters in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, in the Laurentians.
The first phase of the project will include five four-season shelter-like buildings that will house a total of 40 capsule beds. The new accommodation site will be built on land adjacent to the Tyroparc facilities, on the outskirts of Mount Catherine, this horseshoe-shaped mountain bordered by Cap Beauséjour and the North River. Since 2015, Tyroparc has specialized in adventure and leisure activities in the great outdoors. Passe-Montagne, based in Val-David, is the oldest outdoor climbing school in Quebec.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY ID Cornette Photography
Backbone, for its part, is known for its first climbing center with café-bistro located in Bromont, in the Eastern Townships, since 2018. There are indoor bouldering walls, a space training, a café-bistro with local products and alcohol, a beach volleyball court, a slackline park, a jacuzzi, hammocks, swings, a clothing store, specific time slots for teleworkers and fanatics board games. Services that can also be found at Mont Catherine in this second project.
Unity is strength
Together, these three companies intend to offer a range of complementary and unequaled services in Quebec.
“In our wildest dreams, we would never have imagined a complex like this, in such a natural space, while offering the possibility of constructing our new buildings adapted to our climbing center. It’s a dream come true”, rejoices the general manager of Backbone, Frédérique Marseille.
“For us too, it’s great,” says the majority co-owner of Tyroparc, Philippe Cornette, who quickly understood the enormous potential represented by Mount Catherine, with its imposing cliffs, when settling in the Laurentians.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY TIROPARC
“This new association will allow us to increase the number of services offered to our customers,” assures Mr. Cornette. Certainly, this will attract us even more people, while allowing them to discover the riches of our beautiful region.”
Owner of the Passe-Montagne school for three years, Andréanne Vallières is jubilant.
“We finally have our foot-to-earth. For us, all the pieces fall into place with great partners. We are going to organize climbing camps and training there without neglecting our involvement in Val-David, at the foot of these mountains which saw the birth of climbing in Quebec.”
The first sod of this major $3 million project will take place in 2023, confirmed Frédérique Marseille. The official opening is scheduled for somewhere in the winter of 2024.
Val-David: cradle of rock climbing in Quebec
A stone’s throw from the site chosen for the project is the gem of rock climbing in Quebec, Val-David and its topography.
This exceptional site, whose reputation goes beyond borders, is the largest in the province. It includes a large number of routes (paths traced by climbers) and blocks spread over several massifs (Césaire, King, Condor) on a rock made of granite, particularly appreciated by climbers for its consistency.
Photo provided by the Lavallée family
“Val-David remains the preferred destination for climbers. Between 600 and 1,000 climbers still come there every weekend,” says Claude Lavallée, 89, a first-time climber who stood out as a team leader during an expedition to the Yukon as part of the festivities. Canada’s Centennial. Later, in the company of Gilles Parent, Mr. Lavallée founded the Fédération québécoise de montagne et d’escalade (FQME), thus unifying six already existing climbing clubs. Their intention was to make the practice of outdoor climbing more accessible and safe for initiates.
The discovery and development of the territory of Val-David as an exceptional site for climbing are attributed to a Swiss engineer, John Brett, and go back several decades. In 1932, Mr. Brett and his sons made the first complete ascent of a climbing route as it is understood today.
Nowadays, near Val-David, there are hundreds of climbing routes on the rock walls, whose elevations fluctuate between 10 and 130 meters in height. “More than 600, just in Val-David. For the Laurentians, we are talking about 3,000 routes on the different walls,” says Claude Lavallée.