Hiking: CIME Haut-Richelieu (Mont St-Gregoire, Quebec)

This post has been a long time in the making as the hike took place before all the festivals in probably early October. With that said, we did get two hikes in during October as a final hurrah to the season unless the weather holds up and we end up finding some year-round trails that we can still hike on. Its a research currently in progress.

CIME Haut-Richelieu was a rather spontaneous choice on a random morning that we wanted to go somewhere but didn’t quite know where and then I remembered that near an Arbraska in Mont St-Gregoire that I had gone a few years back that there were hiking trails nearby and after some quick research, voila!

Sentier Le Panorama

CIME Haut-Richelieu is a small network of trails. We started out on Le Panorama (blue trail) that took us to a few little landings. It started out relatively gentle but the elevation we climbed in a short distance went up relatively quickly as within 1km of Le Panorama reached the 250m high of its summit at the end of this trail that circled to another trail that looped back to the reception centre. The trail included a lot of steps like these or other ones that were actual steep wooden stairs.

Le Panorama wasn’t especially long but it did link off to some other trails. The first was a little clearing on the trail Les Arenes which had a little view and some spot where a fixture used to be there but was since removed with some info.

It had somewhat of more obstructed view and then there was a little lookout platform as well. However, the yellow path also branches out for a 220m steep walk to its Petit Sommet trail (aka small summit). There had a pretty nice view of the surrounding area.

As you make your way back, you have to double back onto the blue trail which are the other side of some stone steps divided by a barrier. Its important to look carefully at the markers to make sure you are on the right trail path. Of course, its time to reach the top of the summit which also marks the end of this trail. The view has boards on each side that give a distance to other mountains around and in which direction and other information of elevation which is pretty great.

Trail La Carriere (green)

Coming back, we take a slightly longer trail which is 1.4 km long but also gives a little less in elevation which is nice. Its a fairly easy path with some different vegetation. The beginning portion circles around a rather panoramic view of the summit to get out and has one lookout point  on the other side that is fairly nice. It goes through some historic spots and a rocky area where some machinery  used to be there as the info card mentioned.

What is pretty cool about the trail coming back is that in the ending parts of the trail, it has little stations that shows different machinery from back in the day for display. It doesn’t have clear information cards on what its purpose was but still, its a nifty little thing that my husband particularly included as he likes history and mechanics/machinery things. The ending trail pretty much goes through a forest trail.

CIME Haut-Richelieu is a nice little spot to go. We skipped through some of the trails in detail like Les Arenes which was something of a shortcut path as well as La Raccourci which connects in one part the blue and green trails  but we opted to do the whole thing is in full we ended up doing a decent hike of 2.6 kms which is relatively short for our usual hike but as one after a month and a half of break, it felt like a shorter one but still challenging with the quick elevation change, plus, it had some nice scenery.

CIME Haut-Richelieu has winter trails and such, I believe so you can always check it out if you’d like on their website HERE. Plus they have entrance fees so you can check that out as well.

Hiking: Mont Chapman (Stokes, Quebec)

The next hike went back to probably one of the most popular areas in Quebec and pretty well-known for its nature and that’s the Eastern Townships. After some research, we landed on finding this location called Mont Chapman. Its one of the farther hiking trails in Eastern Townships as we headed into a smaller country road that lead to a little parking lot in the middle of nowhere, with actually a few cars as the starting point for the hike.

The part that we did is the Boucle du Mont Chapman which goes around. We ended up doing the entire loop (and some more…I’ll talk about that later). Its pretty much a loop to the summit and back. With the shorter distance and the height of the summit, the elevation went up fairly quickly and it was almost a constant sloped trek, which is one of the bigger challenges of the path especially going upwards. We took the 4.9 km path upwards and did the 3.3 km downwards.

The path was pretty well maintained. There are a lot of little stones and twigs sticking out of the path through which can be hidden by all the fallen leaves. That is the only issue but its all about being observant. At the same time, there are some efforts to put planks to cross over little streams and some steps were made out of the terrain to help the process. There are some rocky steps as well. If not, in the little streams area, there are little rocks to walk over to stay a little more dry. It has to do with the weather still be cooler and more rainy this spring, I think. There were also some unique things like walking between boulders to get to the other side or on the down path, there’s some boulders to climb down from, as expected as the return trip is shorter distance, making it a steeper downhill trek.

And then, the view at the summit had a few angles, here it is:

Its a pretty hard track to be honest and it probably has to do with the fact that we expected it to be milder than it turned out to be. The issue with expectations, right? Either way, it was listed as an intermediary path, I believe but at times it did have some difficult moments. Setting that aside, my biggest issue was that we went the 4.9km path up where you follow the orange and white indicators on the trees, but going down, we had to follow the red and white indicators and man, was that confusing. Why I said that we ended up doing more than the total was because in between, we had to try three paths and each headed back to the fork, taking us over an hour to figure out where to go while walking up some really steep paths up and down to come to the conclusion to go back to the summit and take the path back and realized there was a sign at another angle in the distance that gave you the right path to follow. A lot of issues for my ankles (almost twisted it a few times on the downward jumps or hidden protruding rocks) on this one hike that I had to use some the trusty KT Tape and we had bought recently. That’s one of my complaints about this track, the unclear signage. While a part of the path has some work being done and didn’t have an alternate route so we checked that it was still just muddy but safe so kept going through the area to get to the other side since it was so close to the summit.

On the more positive side, this was the hike that got us ready for some harder trails. While we were both fed up of the trail on the way back and it was a tad painful (for my ankle specifically), there is a good amount of satisfaction to toughing it out and getting through it at the same time, having a good idea that we’ve really improved our preparedness over the years that we still had water left and food to sustain our energy. Not to mention, we had also got some pasta salads in the cooler at the car as a reward.

This was a rough one. 
Can’t say the view was a huge reward since it was also bug-infested. Insect repellant is a must on this trail.
We are hoping to squeeze in one or two more hikes before event season starts up in July. 😉

Restaurant: Les Enfants Terribles – Place Ville Marie (Montreal, Canada)

Last weekend, we went out to celebrate my in-laws marriage anniversary – 45 years! #marriagegoals right? Anyways, I’m no good at hashtagging so that might be all wrong. My sister in-law suggested that we head out to a restaurant in downtown Montreal located at the summit of the Place Ville Marie building called Les Enfants Terribles. If you look at their site, they have a few other locations. However, the summit on gets a terrace view of Montreal at its 44th floor height above the city. We were a decent sized group and had a 9:30pm reservation. I can’t say that works as dinner but we tried to work that out as best we could since you know, the point of this is family time! And we did have fun hanging out, especially since my mom went out with the group.

Do note that I took pictures only of my husband and my own dishes and drinks because it was a fairly big group and walking around in the bustling restaurant would have been almost impossible. To be fair, mostly everyone got similar dishes. I’ll talk about it in the main meals section.

Les Enfants Terribles – Place Ville Marie

I didn’t take much of the interior design but the outside did have a pretty lovely view. There is a plastic wall fencing off the entire surrounding so its more for observation than pictures particularly at night. They also have a beautiful vegetable garden planted right in the middle of the terrace which I thought was a great addition.

Cocktails

Left: Rye Lemonade – Right: Collins

There was a pretty nice selection in terms of cocktails to choose from. We arrived a little earlier than the reservation so we had a little wait time where they arranged a table and seats for us on the rooftop terrace and gave us time to order some drinks. My husband and my mom both ordered the Rye Lemonade. Their only thing was that it was sour, excuse me, tart is the accurate word. Which I took a sip and it absolutely was. I ended up choosing Collins, mostly because there was something I didn’t know in it and also, it had a vodka base which I’m a fan of. It was alright after I remembered to stir it. Amateur mistake perhaps. It was okay. Cocktails, especially trying out new ones, is usually a hit and miss based on preference so I can’t say it wasn’t executed well, more that this wasn’t exactly my preference. They did look good, although a tad pricey for the size, but every restaurant with a view does boost up its prices.

Main Meals

Seared Salmon with Red Quinoa, Kale, Cucumber, Grapefruit and Edamame

Not surprisingly that my mom and I have the same sort of dining schedule. However, after long debate, we ended up not getting an appetizer but went for sharing a full meal. My mom likes to eat healthy and be healthy. Her ability to stay persistent to her healthy lifestyle is one that I look up to. With that said, as we debated fish and chips or seared salmon, it was obvious which one she would prefer although this seared salmon was one that yielded a very homely lady response of how she could probably make this at home for so much less. You know, moms, right? However, as healthy as this dish looked, it was also very good. Everything was cooked well. I was a little skeptical about the whole grapefruits being part of the meal but it works surprisingly well as a balance for the flavors here. Its also not overly salty either and flavored in a well-balanced way. It was pretty delicious especially since the cook of the salmon was also right on.

Fish and Chips

My husband got the fish and chips. Total coincidence that he ended up with this one and it also being a choice for me and my mom. I had a small taste of the fish and the batter and its honestly pretty nice. There’s a nice crunch to the batter and a nice flavor and the fish is cooked in such a tender way that it just falls apart. Its delicious. My husband also enjoyed it.

As for everyone else, a lot of us chose either fish and chips or the seared salmon. My mother in-law got a Ceasar Salad as an appetizer and had a pasta dish to follow. There was a pasta gratin that someone else took, I believe. My brother in law took the beef burger, which was a choice my husband was thinking about. The niece and nephew took each a kids meal, one of which was pasta and the other, I can’t remember right now.

Atmosphere/Experience/Service

Probably the biggest critique that I have of this outing was the atmosphere itself. I’ve been to rooftop terrace restaurants before. While the terrace area was pretty sane and comfortable to just enjoy the view and get some lovely air, the inside atmosphere is relatable to most modern lounges where its very loud with a lot of people talking over each other and talking over what I think was music since it was so loud that I barely could hear myself think. I spent a lot of time talking to my mom since she sat close to me and still talking very loud for her to hear me. At the same time, a little frustrated with having to repeat everything that I said. I feel like when I say that, it kind of makes me old. However, its a choice of how they choose to angle their restaurants. Its just a pity in my mind at least that such an upscale looking brasserie (which should have tipped me off on the noise level) would choose to be this sort of loud affair. However, I believe that is more of a personal preference.

The second critique of the night did go to service. I’ve heard of the service here being a tad below par. However, it was surprising to see it happen to ourselves as we chased over a few drinks that didn’t make it to the table for an extended time. However, after we canceled one of the last drinks that didn’t make it there at all, they gave it to us anyways for free as an apology. Its a nice gesture but in a spot like this, the drinks should be the bread and butter and especially for the price we pay for the experience, it definitely warrants better attention and efficiency. I was going to say quality of service but the waiters were friendly so that is a plus.

Overall…

Food is delicious, drinks were good, service is lackluster, loud atmosphere and great rooftop view
Not exactly sure that I’ll go back unless we have another family event there but it was an experience I can cross off my list now