The Great Jay Travel Adventure

Kind of exciting, and very unlike me, I didn't really plan any of this trip.  This was a total board-bum make it up as you go style trip for me.  Somehow I managed to get myself to Tremblant for the first part of the week (ok that was easy, I hitched a ride with Terry, the guy I was staying with).  But then I needed to get myself to Jay Peak for the Boston OutRyders' annual Big Gay Jay ski weekend at Jay Peak resort in Vermont.

After an awesome nude sauna and less than awesome plunge into a snowbank, I'm sitting in the villa we were staying at just outside of St. Sauveur, panic sets in... OMG Jay Peak is in Vermont.  Did this Canadian boy think to pack his passport?  Rummaging through the second bag I had packed for the Jay portion of the trip... thankfully I had.  Man... look at me thinking ahead.

Ok... now how do I actually get there?  Night before seems like the right time to be figuring that out right?  Well, I was heading there with my ski-bud Yanick from the Toronto Gay Ski & Snowboard Club, he was to fly into Montreal the next night.  Then OutRyder Marc, who lives in Montreal, was going to pick us up from the airport and drive us down to Jay Peak.  This is all a good plan... I just need to get to Trudeau Airport.  That can't be too hard right?  Sounds like a problem for tomorrow Ian... now it's beer o'clock.  So we kick back and enjoy a few before heading to bed.

Terry, the guy I was about to abandon when I headed off to Jay, leaving him behind in Tremblant, had his nephew headed in to join him for a couple days.  So at the wonderful time of 1am... woken up I am.  It was an awesome 2 bedroom villa we were staying at... but I was the tag along, so I had the couch.  Well you know how it is after a 7 hour late night drive.  You arrive wired.  So it was time for a few more beers.  This is going to make for a great day tomorrow.

So falling back asleep about 3am, and back up at 7am for breakfast, I was well rested (not).  I scramble to finish my packing, and off we head to Tremblant for the day.

Once there Terry and his nephew make their way up the mountain for a day of slightly soggy skiing (it was raining lightly. Kinda par for the course in the east this year).  I started working on how to get myself to the airport to meet my ride to Jay.

That could have gone smoother.

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So as it turns out, there's two ways to get to Montreal from Tremblant.  One is not so easy, and the other, Tremblant customer service staff don't seem to know about, even though it's on their own bloody website.

It makes sense to me that I just wander into the customer service desk and ask them how to get myself to Trudeau Airport.  Get to the front of the line and this sweet woman starts helping me out.  She wanders over to the pamphlet rack and pulls out a couple of bus schedules, and starts explaining to me how to hop on the local public transit, and get myself to this random Shell gas station just off the highway.  There I'd get pickup up by a regional bus service that runs in the area operated by Galland.  This would take to to the main bus terminal in downtown Montreal.  From there I could get directions on how to navigate public transit, or grab a cab to the airport.  Neither of which were going to work... I'd arrive at the airport about 2 hours after my ride to Jay was to leave.

Repeatedly I kept asking about the Tremblant Express, a service listed on their website that supposedly was a shuttle directly to the airport from the village at Tremblant.  "Oh no such service exists sir.  There's no way to get there directly from here."  WHAT?? It's on YOUR website though.  Oh gawd... this was clearly not going to be productive and time was awasting.

For your own information, the route she was trying to send me on is a regular regional bus service, so it's by far the cheaper option.  At about $38, you can take regular transit from Tremblant to the heart of Montreal.  You do need to get yourself out to that Shell Station by the highway where it stops to pickup.  This necessitates a bit of navigation of the local public transit system first.  Always fun when you're trekking with ski gear.  But the local transit is built for ski gear (they are after all a ski resort town).  And the route actually looked pretty easy to navigate.  This bus operates to the downtown bus terminal in Montreal, particularly convenient if you're connecting with another bus service to head back out of town, or if you live in or are staying in Montreal.  Not so convenient if you're trying to get to the airport.

So I really needed the Tremblant Express, a service operated by Autocars Skyport.  This is a much more expensive option at $98 one-way.  But when you consider it picks up/drops off right in the village at Tremblant, and at every major hotel in the village, (so you've got the resort tax and premium fees), and it drops/picks up right at the airport (so you've got the airport fees they love to charge so much), it's a direct express shuttle, no milk run stops, it still comes out pricey, but it's worth it...  This shuttle can actually be booked in advance directly on Tremblant's website as well, so it can all be packaged together with your accommodations and lift ticket purchases in a nice one-stop shop.

Which is great unless you're looking for a same-day booking.  Then you need to find somewhere to buy a ticket... and apparently Tremblant Customer service staff don't seem to know about this option.  So I spent some time sitting out in the village square on my smart phone doing some google searches to find the actual company's website.

So you can't buy a ticket in person anywhere, and you can't book online day of, but you CAN call them and talk to a very nice booking agent... and if you're not traveling with a credit card, no problem, you can pay the driver cash.

So I was all set.  Now I just needed to get myself to the pickup location for 2:30pm...

Never on-time for anything, I was on-time for this.  Haul my bags over to the shuttle loop, find the van, and... it's locked... no driver in sight.

Well it wasn't going to leave without me... so I plunked down and waited for the driver to return.  Which he eventually did.  As it turns out, the shuttle actually picks up at every hotel in Tremblant.  So my 2:30 Clock Tower pickup was to allow time for a 3pm departure from Tremblant.  But there was only one other passenger booked on the shuttle that day, so the driver was in no rush.  I say this not as a complaint... but so you don't freak out if it's not there on-time for you... but also so you make sure you're there on-time in case it's a busy day and everything is on-jammed-scheduled.

And off to Montreal to head to Jay Peak we went...

A relatively short and comfortable ride, we arrived at the airport hours before I needed to be there.  Extra fun... since I wasn't actually flying anywhere, I couldn't check my bags... so I got to haul them around with me the hours I was waiting.

Cool fact: Montreal Trudeau Airport is one of the few that has free baggage carts.

So that came in handy... until I needed to use the facilities anyway...  then things get a bit cozy... but you do what you need to do when the Burger King you just ate decides it needs out.  Especially when you're about to hop into a stranger's car with two other people.

Then the inevitable happened... cause you know... the day had been going so well...

Yanick wasn't having any better of a day.  He arrived at the Toronto City Centre airport where he learned that due to delays and cancellations earlier in the day from massive fog... he didn't have a seat on the plane.  Not to fear though... he will have a seat... they just need to pull someone else off first.  Like literally pull someone off... the plane was boarding.

Now safely onboard... the flight was delayed.  Naturally.  So hindsight being 20/20, I probably would have had time to enjoy another couple of hours in Tremblant, take that Galland regional bus into the bus terminal, and figured my way out to the airport.  But what are you going to do? I enjoyed a few hours at the wonderful Trudeau Airport instead.

I'm sitting there watching the arrivals boards for updates, and trying to keep in communication with Marc, the wonderful Montreal boy who is going to pick us up.  This is when I learned that somehow Google knows more about the status of flights than the airport does.  Kinda scary, not going to lie.  So I started watching my phone instead of the arrivals board.  We got it all planned out, timed out, and we were going to be all super smooth, with Marc arriving perfectly timed... until Yanick's bags didn't show up.

I mean par for the course for the day right?

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A while later, after a visit to customer service, his bag was located... still in Toronto... they thought... maybe... so we were off to Jay, Yanick ski and clothes-less, the airline to figure out how to get his bags to us in Jay.

Ok, don't get me wrong... I love my french boys... I really do... but who in the hell thought it was a good idea to get jammed in a Volkswagen with TWO of them?

And the route we took.  OMFG.  Two hours stuck in the back seat listening to some sort of french opera/showtunes/folk fusion mix thing that loosely resembled something they swore was music.  I couldn't hear any convo anyway with the.... whatever that "music" was... cranked... so I popped in my earbuds and listened to some good old english top-40.

There's a few different routes you can take form Montreal to Jay, crossing the border in a different place for each of them.  We wound up crossing at the one Yanick described as "a man, his dog, and his cow, stuck at an outpost".  Except this time it was a young lady, didn't see a dog, there may have been a cow, unsure, it was dark and foggy.

It rapidly became clear that she had no problem allowing us to enter the USA, but she wasn't going to let us go too quickly.  She wanted to chat a bit.  She was lonely.

Finally allowed to continue on our way, windy rough roads and fairly thick fog most of the way, we were in the middle of nowhere USA... with limited to no cell reception for most of the way.  "So there was this time I got stuck in a ditch..." as we approach a curve fairly quickly "in the same spot as a year earlier..." another round of fog rolls in "on a road just like this..." amazing "it was kind of neat, I got the same tow truck driver both times." Ok, we just met, it's foggy, and the road isn't great to begin with... not sure this is the time I want to be able to start hearing the conversation over the french whatever it is music...

In fairness, Marc was an excellent and very safe driver.  So I have to assume that those stories were either made up, or there was even worse weather involved.  Either way... we arrived safely.

Let the Big Gay Jay Weekend adventure begin... for us anyway... rest of our Toronto crew had been here for hours already.