Bromont

We arrived in Bromont expecting a ski town in the off-season, one of those places that goes half-dormant between snow seasons, and found instead a town running at nearly full summer capacity, mountain bikers everywhere, full-face helmets under arms outside every café on the main street. Mont Bromont operates one of the largest lift-served mountain bike parks in eastern North America, over a hundred kilometers of trail served by chairlifts that in winter carry skiers and in summer carry bikes and the people brave enough to ride them downhill at speed.

I am not that brave, for the record, but Lia gave it a go on one of the easier green trails while I hiked a parallel path with a camera, and watching her disappear around switchbacks through the forest, dust kicking up behind the tires, gave me a decent sense of why this sport has taken over the town’s identity. The scale of the operation surprised me — this isn’t a couple of gravity trails bolted onto a ski hill as a summer afterthought, it’s a fully built-out bike park with terrain for every skill level, plus a skills area at the base where kids barely old enough to walk were practicing on pump tracks.

Bromont’s other claim to fame is Balnea, a spa built into the forest on the shore of Lac Gale, which we treated ourselves to on our second afternoon after Lia’s legs had had enough of the bike park. Outdoor thermal pools steaming in the cool air, a sauna looking straight out over the water, and a policy of enforced silence in the main pool areas that felt like a genuine gift after a day of trail dust and chairlift noise. It’s the kind of Nordic-spa concept that’s spread across Quebec in the last fifteen years, and Balnea is one of the better executions of it I’ve experienced.

The town itself has an equestrian side too — Bromont hosts major international show jumping competitions, and the fairground facilities are serious enough that Olympic riders have trained here. Between the biking, the spa, and the horses, Bromont has managed to build an identity around activity that never quite tips into exhausting.

When to go: June through September for mountain biking, when the trail network is fully open and dry. December through March for skiing, on a mountain with reliable snowmaking and a good beginner-to-intermediate mix. The spa at Balnea works in any season, arguably best in winter with snow falling around the outdoor pools.