Snowboarding in Mont Sainte Anne

Instead of separating skiing and boarding, Mont-Sainte-Anne was one of the first resorts to decide to open their kilometre (282,500-sq.ft. (26,250 sq.m.) long terrain park to both skiers and boarders. The Grande Allée was chosen as a site for the terrain park for its accessibility and being under a chairlift adds to the spectacular side of freestyling! The name Grande Allée comes from a street in Québec known for its many bars and restaurants. In 1997 the resort invested in a Pipe Dragon, the implement which attaches to the snow groomer and can carve the most perfectly shaped, smooth half-pipe as well as building and carving tabletops and up turns. Starting off with an 80m long halfpipe, the park has jumps at various heights, the "freecarve" slalom course, a series of small rolls or absorption jumps and several table tops of varying heights. Boarders can jump from the front or the side on these tabletops offering the choice of big air, long jumps or tricks. The up-turns help to gather speed for entry into the quarter-pipes and then the park ends with a big roll, 2 big jumps and a last jump over the waves. This is an all-round park which can even be integrated into boardercross when four to six boarders race, all at the same time, down a course. Over the years Mont-Sainte-Anne has hosted many World Championships including the FIS Snowboard World Cup in 1997. The making of the World Cup halfpipe took five days of work from the grooming machine to roughly shape it then a day with the Pipe Dragon for the finishing touches. To comply with World Cup rules the halfpipe had to be 100m long, with 3m walls 16 m apart.