Blue Mountain Resort (Winter) - Ontario

* The dates on some of the images are incorrect due to camera malfunction. All images were taken in 2013.

 

Blue Mountain Resort is a ski resort located in Ontario, Canada near the town of Collingwood. Situated near Nottawasaga Bay it  is third-busiest ski resort in Canada, after Whistler in British Columbia and Mont Tremblant in  Quebec.  It also has a  "village" similar to those built at Tremblant and Whistler at its base. 

As part of my time share I went on to stay there for two nights from December 13 to 15, Friday to Sunday. I had invited a close friend and his family to accompany us to the resort. Our plan was to drive there after work on Friday and check in. Check out time was Sunday 11 AM.

Friday was a relatively nice day with some forecast for light snow later in the evening. To ensure that we didn’t get stuck into annoyingly heavy traffic on highway 401 and 400 we started late, around 8 PM. The weather remained pretty good with practically no snowfall. On the highway to our satisfaction we saw very light traffic all the way to our destination. It was about 200 kilometers from our location. Hwy 400 took us to Barrie from where we took 26 W to reach the resort on Jozo Weider Blvd. 

 

The room was a one bedroom suit with a full kitchen and a family room. It was neat and cozy and was large enough to accommodate two small families. The view of the ski hills right from the family room window was great.

On Saturday morning we woke up late, ate a big breakfast in the suit prepared by the two gracious ladies. We then packed up in heavy snow clothing and went to check out the village.

 

None of us ever done any skiing and had no reason to try it now. Couple of the kids had a very mild interest in skiing but considering our inexperience we had decided not to allow them. We walked around the village, took pictures and checked out the activities.

It was very cold with -18C temperature (feel like -21C). After about an hour everybody was so exhausted in cold that we decided to return to our room. We had thought of going up the mountain on a lift chair but regretfully noticed the lift tickets were designed for the skiers only and was relatively high in price. It made little sense for us to spend that much for one single trip.We returned to our room and were happy in the pleasant warmth that it offered.

Later that afternoon we went to the Aquatic plunge. This was one of the main attraction for us as we were not into skiing.

 

The plunge was a blast. Initially as we entered in the facility the shallow but spacious indoor swimming pools looked nice but not worth the price that we paid for it. The water was also a little cold than what we had expected.

However, our perception of it completely changed as soon as we found out that the indoor pool was connected with the outdoor pool and the swimmers were allowed to go there either through a channel that connected the two pools or just walk out and jump in. It takes no telling that the outdoor pool was adequately heated. This was a great experience as the outdoor temperature was pretty low. As we swam outside the water in our exposed hair kept on getting frozen. The kids had a blast. There were also a specious hot tub with steamy water. We had a great time there submerged in the hot water as the snow covered pine trees stood nearby.

On our way back we got ourselves some famous Putin (of Quebec). It is basically cheese and gravy over fries. Usually taste okay but these ones were little too salty. Kids ate greedily, I could barely eat.

At night there was supposed to be a fireworks in the Mills pond. Unfortunately by the time we arrived there the very short (few minutes) fireworks had already finished. We could only see a few crackers. Kids were quite disappointed as dressing up for this event took them about ten minutes. Anyway, we took this opportunity to check out the village at night. It was nicely decorated with Christmas trees and colorful lights.

 Once we returned to our suit my friend's fifteen year old daughter realized she dropped her cell phone outside. Dad and daughter sped out in search for the cell phone. Fortunately as they traced back our trip around the village they found the cell phone intact, lying on snow.

 Next morning we checked out and made our way back home. The night before there were some snowfall. The trip back home looked quite snowy white.

* The dates on some of the images are incorrect. All images were taken in 2013.