The Softer Side of Mont-Sainte-Anne

With its rich history of the World Cup racing, it's easy to think that Mont-Sainte-Anne boils down to super technical downhill tracks and very demanding cross-country courses. Yes, plenty of those can be found, but with over 25 km of dedicated DH trails and more than 120 km of XC trails, there must be something for everyone…

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With a brother working in the travel industry willing to facilitate the logistics, I assembled a small crew of Québec City locals to visit this iconic destination. French transplant and EWS hopefull Franck “the tank” Kirscher was our guide for the day. The rest of the crew was all women, including Marie-Eve Marcotte, Marie-Ève Coulombe and Gabrielle Simoneau. Étienne Dionne was tagging along for the photos, with minimal gear since covering the vast network in a single day calls for a lighter setup!


Things did not look good at first, with cold air and an omnipresent fog, but rumours of a thermal inversion were keeping our photo hopes alive. 2 shuttles up the service road later, we were greeted at the summit with warmth and a stunning view of a clouded Saint-Lawrence river. Inversion indeed!


The first few stops were along La Grisante, a 6.2 km intermediate DH trail. As of now, this is the easiest trail down from the summit and is targeted at those who wish to ride the XC and still take the gondola. Modern trail and enduro bikes should be able to handle this trail with relative ease. The upper section was reworked last summer and it’s now all about high-speed berms and small jumps.


Following this great opening, the trail wander through an open coniferous forest, reminiscent of an alpine meadow.


Having ridden the DH park extensively in the past, I wanted to stop by an open section in “La Chômeuse”, one the hardest track of the mountain. This particular section, however, is all about loose and rocky singletrack. Patchy light made it really hard to get decent shots but Frank and Marie-Ève Marcotte still gave their best.


That little detour forced us back to the base for a quick lunch and then off to the side of the mountain where most of the XC oriented trails are found. Destination: “La Boutteaboutte”, a new intermediate trail that links the base of the mountain to the “rang Saint-Julienne” service area. This trail was originally built as a climbing trail, but the flow going down is so good that it was one of the timed descents for last year Québec Singletrack Experience stage race!


After that, we were pretty much done, but Frank insisted to go check out a harder trail called “La Yable”, using golden berms and photogenic jumps as arguments. I think he made it worth our while.


On our way back to the cars, Étienne and I were lucky enough to run into a female moose and her cub, a nice touch after an exhausting day.


There you have it, the "soft side" of Mont-Sainte-Anne, a great way to discover this legendary mountain. Here's a Trailforks route that will take you along most of the places shown in this article:

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Region info
With Mont-Sainte-Anne, Vallée Bras-du-Nord, Sentiers du Moulin and Empire 47 all less than an hour from the city centre, the Quebec City Area has something for everyone, from classic XC trails to challenging enduro descents and world cup worthy DH tracks.

Quebec City Area mountain biking trails

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