Mont Alta
A Laurentians ski hill that opened in 1952 as Mont Chevreuil, lost its quad chairlift and snowmaking to hydro bills, went dark in 2012, and came back as a volunteer-run, lift-free skin-up mountain.
- Region
- Quebec
- Country
- Canada
- Status
- reopened
- Year opened
- 1952
- Year closed
- 2012
- Reason for closure
- Mounting costs against a shrinking operation. The owner sold the quad chairlift and abandoned snowmaking because of hydroelectricity bills, leaving an ungroomed all-natural-snow hill on one old double chair; three poor snow years and a run of difficulties meant it did not open for the 2012-13 season and was put up for sale.
History
Mont Alta rises above Val-David in the Laurentians, about an hour north-west of Montreal on Route 117. Skiing started there in 1952 under the name Mont Chevreuil and the hill was renamed Mont Alta in the 1970s. By the late 1980s it had 22 trails, snowmaking and two chairlifts including a quad, on roughly 600 ft of vertical. It never modernised further: the owner sold the quad and gave up snowmaking because of hydroelectricity costs, and Mont Alta settled into a reputation as the last of the ungroomed, all-natural, ski-where-you-like hills in the Laurentians, with powder-filled glades and minimal patrolling. After three thin winters it failed to open for the 2012-13 season and long-time owner Oswald Lingat listed it for sale. The Quebec ski site ZoneSki, which had promoted the hill for over a decade, launched a campaign titled 'What If We Bought Back Mont Alta?', and more than fifty volunteers cleared trails and restored what was left, with a co-operative ownership model and a 199 dollar powder pass. It has run ever since as Expérience Mont Alta, a social project sustained by volunteers, offering 27 unpatrolled runs and glades from intermediate to extreme with no lifts at all - everyone skins or boots up. Individual trail names and the identity of the two chairlifts are not documented in accessible sources.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Quad | One of two chairlifts in the late 1980s; sold off by the owner to cut costs and no longer on site | |
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Double | The hill's last working lift, still in place as of 2013 but no longer operating; the current ski operation runs without any lifts |
Sources and further reading
More in Canada
Location
46.0351, -74.2384