1-day ski trip for beginners near the GTA

One of the annual winter rituals for my wife and I is skiing. The GTA is relatively flat and downward ski slopes are not easy to find. Fortunately, reasonably interesting slopes are not difficult to find within driving distance. For our first Canadian ski trip, we went to Mount St. Louis Moonstone.

Located in Coldwater, Ontario (how cool is the name!), Mt. St. Louis is just a little more than an hour away from Toronto. Take Hightway 400 North and get off at Exit 131, you have arrived the ski resort. The resort has 2 base camps but they both have acces to the same hills. The Mount St. Louis camp has easier access to bunny slopes whereas the Moonstone camp covers larger area of blue and black diamonds. Interestingly though, I personally feel the blue diamonds on the Moonstone side are less as steep as the ones over on the Mt. St. Louis side.

Take the Summit Six Express lift from the Mt. St. Louis camp to the hilltop and you can snap a very nice picture of the surrounding area before you descend downhill.

From the other camp, the Promenade Six Express lift takes you to he Big Lonely trail, which is one of the most romantic trail of the hill.

I’m not a very avid skiier, so I started my day with a warm up of Sundance, then Holiday and the Big Lonely before doing a few more blue diamond trails on both hills. The day was a great fun and the trip was a reasonable one-day getaway although the lack of equipment rentals near the resort by locals practically gives the resort a monopoly.