Biking on Le Petit Train Du Nord

Amy and kids and I headed up to Canada this past week for a bike trip-- I'm now getting around to putting up a blog post for the trip. Photos below are about half from my camera and half from Pete and Rosana's.

As usual, this is a trip that Amy conceived of and organized; not sure exactly how she heard about the place, but there is a converted rail line called "Le Petit Train Du Nord" up in Quebec that is an ideal route for biking. It starts about 45 mins drive north of Montreal, then runs northwest up into the Laurentian hills, finishing up in the town of Mont Laurier.

Along for the ride this time were Pete and Rosana, their daughter Blue, Amy, myself,  Ethan, Lydia, and our niece Cate, for a total of eight.  We drove up on Sunday Aug 12 to Canada, with everyone meeting up at a Best Western motel in Saint Jerome in the evening. Saint Jerome isn't actually the southernmost point on the trail, but it's a popular starting point, since the parts south of that are basically running through the Montreal suburbs (not exactly wilderness).

Here we are on the way up: the setup with the rack looks ridiculous, but we did manage to cram on all five bikes. The rack sticks way out from the back of the car, and every time you look back it seems as though it is about to fall off, but it seemed to do the job anyhow.

Had dinner together at an Italian place in Saint Jerome, then it was off to bed to get some rest for the first day of the tour.

Day 1, Mon: up at 6:45am to pack the bikes onto the cars, get organized, and had a quick bite to eat. After a bit of a scramble to get everything squared away, we drove over to the center of town and located the "depot" where the bike trail runs through. The town has set up a convenient (and very large) dirt parking lot right near the trail, so we parked our cars ($6 CN per day) and schlepped our gear over to the waiting vans. The shuttles were smallish, maybe 20 seats, each hauling a huge bike multi-level bike trailer. We delivered our bags to the guy manning the luggage transfer service (basically a minivan); this turned out to be one of the nicer aspects of the trip: having your bag magically disappear from one hotel and then reappear at the next hotel along your way. Not cheap, but a wonderful service. The vans and racks:

The ride up to Mont Laurier starts out on highway 15, a major interstate type highway, then after about 45 mins, the highway finishes up and you get onto route 117, which is a good deal smaller. For the first leg up to Mont Tremblant the van was about half empty, so we were able to spread out a bit. Ethan, Blue, Lydia, and I played a couple of games of hearts (one of the bounciest card games I have ever experienced-- the shocks on the bus were almost nonexistent). At Mont Tremblant we stopped and took on more passengers; after that the bus was pretty much full, so no more card games.  The van dumped us out in the parking lot of an IGA grocery store (kind of weird). We ran in and bought some bread + cheese + sausage for lunch, which turned out to be a wise decision, since there weren't any other lunch options to speak of on the first leg). The drop-off scene:

First section of the bike trail was great-- asphalt, good condition, with long sections running close to various lakes and ponds. The first two-thirds or so of the ride was a very slight uphill, then the last third slightly downhill. We rode a total of 55 kilometers (our longest ride, but not by much). The trees along the ride were very New Englandy-- mostly smaller/younger (the big stuff presumably having been cut a while ago), but very familiar varieties: white pine, white + yellow birch, spruce, maple, ash, and other more scrubby stuff. No oak that I could see (the only one I spotted was in someone's front yard).

This shot is a typical view of an entrance gate to the trail: wooden gate and "welcome!" sign:

On the trail:

Not too many flowers, but enough to make things cheerful:

 Not sure what this one was:

View of the lakes on the first morning:

The paved part of the trail -- nice and smooth:

More riding photos:

Unbeknownst to Cate, there is a longstanding Quebecois tradition of yodeling at bike rest stops:

Whew, yodeling complete.

Beware of the dad...

More riding photos:

We eventually finished up our ride at the first B&B with plenty of time for a swim / shower and some relaxation.  The owner, Guy, was a very nice older guy; he got us settled in. Not the largest place I have ever stayed in; there were only about five rooms: we took four, and then there was another couple (from England I think) staying in the last one. The house has nice high ceilings, which gives it an open / airy feel. After getting unpacked, the kids went for a swim (along with Pete and me) while the women opted to hang out at the house. The swimming was actually pretty decent; a 5-10 min walk through the woods to a large pond. Nice water, nobody else in sight that we could see (although there were some houses and boat docks visible).

After an hour of so of relaxing and reading (and more volleyball for the kids) we had a dinner out on the porch (very nice weather-- ideal for outdoor dining). Lots of food: carrot/parsnip soup, turnovers/dumplings with ground lamb, then a main course of game hen and root vegetables, and finally a sort of chocolate bread pudding thing for dessert.

Food!

There seems to be a weird thing going on in Quebec with odd-colored carrots-- we had purple and yellow carrots served with this dinner, then we saw the strange multi-colored beasties later on again in one of the small grocery stores. Odd.

Day 2, Tue: woke up to the sound of raindrops hitting the porch roof-- not a downpour, but definitely the wet stuff. We had a nice big breakfast (I think Pete and I were the only ones to finish everything), then got organized and struck out on the trail. It was wet but not actually raining when we set out, which was nice. We played "tag" with the other couple who had stayed at the B+B (they periodically accused us of "following" them).

Half way through the morning ride we noticed a "pick your own" blueberry place, so Pete and Rosana and I stopped for a pint (they were very tasty-- incredibly ripe).

Later on the kids spied a bakery, so they jumped at the opportunity to grab various pastries and cinnamon rolls. The bakery was across the trail from shelter of sorts that looked out over a marsh that the town had set up as a sort of bird sanctuary. There were pictures on the wall and descriptions of various bird species (this included descriptions of the bird sounds/calls in French, which were hilarious for some reason). While we were finishing our snacks, however, the clouds opened up and it began to rain in earnest. We waited for about 10 minutes for it to let up-- eventually most of the gang opted to put on rain jackets and continue, while Amy and I chickened out and stayed under our shelter for another 15 minutes (it did eventually let up a little).

Stopped for a break, playing "Mad Libs":

Bridge over the Riviere Rouge:

Lots of train-related stuff along the trail:

We stopped for lunch in the town of Labelle; we picked a restaurant (Cafe La Gare) that was right on the path. The meal was something of a mixed bag-- the food was quite good, but they were very short-staffed that day for some reason, so it took 45 minutes for them to get it all prepared and delivered. Rosana was the bravest of the gang; she ordered a plate of "poutine", the local Quebecois specialty (french fries with gravy and cheese curds). It's a dish that looks sort of scary but it actually tastes pretty good.

At that point the track turned from pavement to dirt; the surface was better than I thought it would be, however (not too many muddy patches or potholes, mostly pretty smooth). For our post-lunch ride we settled into what turned out to be our "default" riding configuration: kids screaming ahead (out of sight within 5 minutes), Amy and I riding sort of in the middle, then Pete and Rosana bringing up the rear.

We eventually arrived at our second bed-and-breakfast, "L'Achillée Millefeuille":

This place was slightly kookier than the last, but nice in its own sort of hippy + agro + green way. Collection of cabins / buildings set in among big pig pine trees with lots of gardens, plantings, flowers, and herbs of all sorts. The entrance was right off the bike path; when you pull in, you have to pick up a little walkie-talkie gadget to contact the owner so that he can unlock the gate and let you in. This proved to be a somewhat tricky operation (lots of buzzing and clicking from the device, then we finally heard a squawk after about 3-4 mins and the voice of Claude, one of the owners, who told us he would be over to let us in shortly). Also introduced to us were the two dogs that roam the place, "Tofu" (large) and "Soleil" (small). There were also assorted chickens and a large + very friendly black cat, whose name escapes me at the moment.

After getting settled the kids and I got directions from Claude and the headed down a short path that took us to the Riviere Rouge, which was only a couple of hundred yards off to the west. Kind of a weird swim: the water was very low (hip high at the deepest point), but the river bottom was covered in nice sand throughout, so it was easy to walk around and explore. We had seen the river at various points on our ride that afternoon and had wondered why they named it "Red", but when you swim it finally becomes clear-- the sand at the bottom is flecked with little bits of red stone, giving it a reddish tinge. After getting cleaned up we had a series of ping-pong matches, then a short volleyball game. For dinner we split up into two groups: Pete + Rosana + Blue + Lydia opted to stay and eat at the inn, while the rest of us caught a ride from Monique (Claude's wife, the other owner) into the village of Mont Tremblant, where we ate at a restaurant there. It turns out that there are actually two "Mont Tremblant" villages-- one for the locals and one for the ski tourists (we went to the "locals" on this time). After that we had a few card games before everyone ran out of steam and hit the sack.

Day 3: in the morning we did our best to get Claude to make some coffee for the early risers, but he was having none of that: "Sorry, no coffee until 8:30" (seems very French somehow). We even sent in Lydia to see if he would take pity on a poor hungry/thirsty child, but no luck. When it did finally arrive, however, the breakfast was wonderful -- eggs from the inn's chickens cooked with herbs from the garden, local cheeses, french toast, yummy yoghurt with berries, blueberries with some sort of lemon cream, and various other tasty dishes.  Amy and I watched Lydia go through two large plates of eggs and french toast (she is normally not a big breakfast eater).

After settling up with Claude and Monique, we hit the trail (it had been foggy when we woke up, but eventually cleared up). Slight uphill for the morning ride; we stopped for lunch at a small town called Saint-Faustin-Lac-Carre' where Claude had given us a recommendation for lunch (a sort of local gourmet store / deli place that made us sandwiches). Very tasty, although we wound up having a lot of leftovers, since the sandwiches were quite large.

Monarch caterpillar:

Kind of a cool shot-- the wood (burned and rotting) is from some ancient version of the bridge, then there is the stone support for the rail bridge, and then finally up on top you have the wooden planks put on for the bike riders:

Frog-hunting:

Photo of the younger folks from MA on the bridge:

Here's a representative shot of the unpaved portion of the trail:

No idea what this was, but we found it by the trail near what was probably an old mill:

After lunch the kids zoomed off at an even more ferocious pace than usual-- we didn't see them at all until the end of the ride. We did some climbing for the second part of the ride (very slight grade, but definitely an uphill). The "crest" point of the trail was sort of odd in that it ran right between two enormous gravel pits (very industrial), then after that past a huge sawmill (very active, lots of lumber trucks). The trees on the trucks being brought to the mill all looked like pine/spruce, and oddly small size-wise (although I suppose this makes sense given that a lot of Canadian timber is the "soft" stuff).

We eventually rolled into the town of Val David and caught up with the kids, who were (predictably) sitting out in front of the hotel playing cards. The hotel was called the "PremaShanti" and although it had a vaguely Indian decor thing going on in a few places, it was mainly just a regular hotel. Great location right on the shore of a nice lake/pond, with nice views, a sandy beach, excellent swimming and kayaking. We had a nice swim and entertained ourselves with watery pursuits for the rest of the afternoon, then had a lengthy session lolling around reading and chatting out on the patio next to the water.

Pete always seems to travel with boatloads of computer processing power; this trip was no exception (he had laptop, ipad, and iphone). Cate, Blue, and Rosana also had smartphones, so part of the routine of showing up a new place was to ask for the WiFi password (this also applied to restaurants too, surprisingly).

The dinner at Premashanti was good although they definitely took their time actually bringing things to the table. Amy had arranged for a cake to celebrate Cate's birthday; the waitstaff brought it out with suitable fanfare and we all sang "Happy Birthday", but the waiter snatched the cake away and it must have been 15 minutes before they actually came back with slices for us to eat (weird).

Day 4: we managed to convince the hotel to give us breakfast at 8am (they had proposed 9am, which seemed a little too late). We had a nice meal, sitting in the dining hall next to a table with a half dozen middle-aged ladies from Ontario, who were also going along the same route that we were. We eventually got packed up, settled our bill, and were on our way again.

Getting ready to head out after staying at Premashanti-- I believe that the photographer made a request for "Usain Bolt":

The nice thing about going "north to south" on L.P.T.D.N. is that you get a wonderful stretch of downhill riding on the last day-- it seemed like the first 15 kilometers went by in a breeze, with very little pedaling. Lots of nice views of the lakes south of Mont Tremblant and of the Riviere Nord off on the right of the trail. Eventually the trail flattened out and we had to work a bit in order to keep up a good pace; it was hot and a little dusty. We eventually rolled into Saint Jerome again around 1pm. We decided to forgo an official lunch as such, and instead put together several weird combinations of french fries, ice cream, and assorted trail mixes to keep us going. Our bags turned up around 1:30, then we went through the usual struggles to get everything packed. Pete and Rosana had to hit the road more or less right away after the bags turned up, since they needed to be back at home the next day for school-related stuff, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road.

Packing the bikes back onto the rack, a grueling exercise usually requiring a certain amount of grumbling and cussing:

The drive back was lengthy-- getting through Montreal always seems to be a struggle, even at times that seemingly should not have a lot of traffic. We enjoyed  listening to a book on tape, "The Wee Free Men" by Terry Pratchett, which is actually a lot of fun to hear read aloud, since the guy doing the reading did a good job with the Scottish accents.

All in all, it was a good trip: wonderful scenery, good exercise, no mechanical or other bike-related disasters (hurray!).