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Pour amour des sous-bois / For the Love of Tree-Skiing

  • March 11, 2021
  • Ned Morgan
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mots :: Leslie Anthony.

Nous sommes « dans le bois » ou plutôt dans le sous-bois, comme on dit dans le jargon. Nos cris, qui se frayent un chemin entre les troncs tout en étant étouffés par les denses couronnes un mètre au-dessus de nos têtes, me rappellent qu’il y a un terrain de jeu surprenant parmi ces bouleaux tordus et ces épinettes rabougries. Sans mentionner la neige abondante. En fait, en ce jour de février de l’un des hivers les plus secs de l’histoire, le ski au Massif du Sud, à l’est de la ville de Québec près de la frontière du Maine, est non seulement acceptable, il est franchement agréable, particulièrement dans les sous-bois où se cache de la neige depuis une semaine.

 

For-the-Love-of-Tree-Skiing-photo-by-Jennifer-Smith
Alain Denis s’amuse dans la féerie hivernale du Mont Blanc. / Alain Denis popping through Mt. Blanc’s winter wonderland. Photo: JENNIFER SMITH

 

Que vous soyez dans les forêts de hêtres au Japon, de mélèzes en Europe, de conifères en Colombie-Britannique ou de trembles… euh, à Tremblant, le ski de sous-bois offre un décor bien différent de celui des vastes champs de neige et des couloirs. Et skier dans les sous-bois de l’Est, chaleur enveloppante de l’Ouest et forêts de géants en moins, n’a pas d’égal. Les sous-bois ne sont quand même pas à la portée de tous; ils peuvent vous repousser comme le feraient des videurs de bar si vous n’êtes pas à votre place, ou vous accueillir telle une haie d’honneur si vous êtes à la hauteur. Et si vous êtes un adepte de poudreuse, des centres de ski comme Le Massif, Sutton ou Jay Peak vous combleront.

Ça me rappelle à quel point j’adore skier les sous-bois.

Au fur et à mesure de notre descente, les grands feuillus prédominent et le terrain se dévoile un peu plus, mais jamais assez pour rendre notre prochain virage très évident. Le ski de sous-bois à l’est du 100 e méridien, où vous pouvez vraiment voir au-delà des arbres, est une succession de décisions, de découvertes et d’éternels changements de direction; en tournant autour d’un arbre, un nouveau tracé apparaît et soudainement tout semble différent. Au virage suivant, tout change encore. La pente se déploie au gré des contours de la montagne, reliés par des courbes qui suivent le profil de la topographie, un profil que les arbres épousent aussi.

 

For the Love of Tree-Skiing-big-air-photo-by-Alain-Denis
Morin Heights. ALAIN DENIS

 

Ayant grandi en ski en Ontario et au Québec, j’ai passé beaucoup de temps à skier dans les sous-bois. En plus de simplement profiter de la beauté d’une journée d’hiver, c’est une façon d’apprécier une forêt dans sa plus simple expression, dépourvue de son apparat estival. Bien qu’on ait l’impression que le temps s’est figé, la forêt cache une vie insoupçonnée; créatures en hibernation, insectes enfouis, sève en attente de remonter dès les premiers indices de chaleur.

Et pourtant, à part un craquement occasionnel causé par le vent, toute cette activité se déroule en silence. Skier dans les sous-bois en hiver, c’est comme entrer dans un royaume peuplé d’êtres dont la nature stoïque en fait le charme — comme s’ils symbolisaient l’expérience et en étaient témoins en même temps. Peut-être est-ce le cas : la recherche montre que le génome humain contient 20 000 gènes, alors qu’un peuplier en contient 45 000. Qu’est-ce que cela signifie quand la complexité du cerveau humain est gouvernée par moins de gènes qu’un morceau de bois? Peut-être cela veut simplement dire que lorsqu’il s’agit d’ADN, la sagesse et la vigilance des arbres sont plus durement acquises.

 

60016a95b67a 1 1

 

Pour les skieurs, les sous-bois représentent aussi un abri en cas de tempête ; pour la neige qui s’y introduit, un filtre et un agent de conservation qui atténue les effets du vent et du soleil. Les microclimats naturels contribuent également : une montagne plus souvent la proie des nuages reçoit beaucoup plus de neige que les sommets voisins, et la douceur des virages entre les arbres confèrent à la montagne sa personnalité unique.

 

Gaspésie-tree-skiing-photo-by-Pierre-Carbonneau-glades
Gaspésie sous bois. Photo: PIERRE CARBONNEAU/BONJOUR QUEBEC

 

Ce qui est peut-être le plus intéressant, c’est la myriade de formes que prennent les arbres en hiver — de minuscules fantômes des neiges voûtés aux improbables pointes de lance qui s’élèvent en hauteur. Pendant des années, j’ai simplement skié à travers ces sentinelles d’albâtre, ne prêtant que peu d’attention à ce qui me paraissait être une détresse gelée. Mais des lectures récentes sur la biologie des arbres ont transformé ma perception des choses. Il s’avère que la nature majestueuse des arbres chargés de neige reflète des millions d’années d’évolution.

Voyez-vous, les sapins subalpins, les épinettes et les cèdres sont des arbres à neige, dont la forme et la fonction ont évolué de façon extraordinaire pour profiter de l’or blanc. Lors d’une importante chute de neige, leur symétrie pointue laisse passer juste assez de neige pour permettre aux branches de plier sans se briser ; par temps froid, ils retiennent suffisamment de neige pour protéger les bourgeons et les pousses ; puis, en fondant, la neige dégoutte des branches en formant un cercle qui alimente les racines, lesquelles requièrent une humidité constante. En fait, le cycle de vie complet d’un arbre à neige se poursuit le printemps, l’été et l’automne lorsque vous skiez près de lui en hiver.

À vrai dire, certains arbres « aiment » la neige, ce qui fait que je les apprécie encore plus.

 


 

We are “under the wood.” Sous bois, as they say in French. My friend’s shouts—bending around trunks and muffled by the dense canopy a metre overhead—reminds me there’s a surprising amount of space under these twisted birch and stunted spruce. Not to mention plenty of snow. In fact, on a February day during one of the driest winters on record, skiing isn’t just passable at Massif du Sud, east of Quebec City near the Maine border, but downright good, with week-old powder lurking in most of the glades.

Whether you’re in Japan’s beech forests, Europe’s larch, B.C.’s conifers, or Aspen’s… well, aspens, skiing the trees offers a different aesthetic than other natural features like bowls and chutes. And eastern tree skiing—lacking the West’s fuzzy warmth and cathedral spires—is different altogether. Hardwoods aren’t for everyone: they’re the rough bouncers at a club ready to repel anyone who doesn’t belong, or an honour guard to welcome those who do. And if you’re a powder hound at all, these are clubs worth joining: Le Massif, Mont Sutton, Jay Peak.

It reminds me how much I love skiing in trees.

 

For the Love of Tree-Skiing-photo-by-Alain-Denis
Jennifer Smith flotte dans une élégance intemporelle, mont Sutton. / Jennifer Smith moving through suspended animation, Mt. Sutton. Photo: ALAIN DENIS

 

As we move downslope and larger hardwoods prevail, things open up—though never enough to make our next move completely obvious. Tree skiing east of the 100th Meridian, where you can actually see around them, is all decisions, discovery and endless permutations; make a turn around one, a new line comes into view and suddenly everything looks different. Your next turn repeats the trick. The slope uncoils over the natural contours of the mountain, connected by lines that follow the logic of topography—a logic that trees follow as well.

Growing up skiing in Ontario and Quebec, I spent a lot of time skiing trees. In addition to simply enjoying the beauty of a winter day, it’s a way to appreciate a forest at its most essential, outside the botanical pageantry of summer. Though it feels like you’re moving through a state of suspended animation, there’s plenty going on in the wood—hibernating creatures and burrowing insects, hormones ready to send sap racing upward at the first hint of warmth. And yet, aside from an occasional creaking in the wind, all this industry is carried out in silence. Skiing the trees in winter is like entering a realm populated by beings whose stoic nature is their very allure—as if they both conjure experience and bear witness to it. Perhaps they do: research shows the human genome to contain 20,000 genes, while a poplar tree has 45,000. What does it mean when the complexity of the human brain is governed by fewer genes than a block of wood? Perhaps only that when it comes to DNA, the wisdom and vigilance of trees is more hard-won.

 

Gaspésie-tree-skiing-photo-by-Pierre-Carbonneau-vista
More Gaspésie sous bois. Photo: PIERRE CARBONNEAU/BONJOUR QUEBEC

 

For skiers, trees are also shelter in a storm; for the snow that finds its way into them, a filter and preservative, minimizing the effects of wind and sun. Natural microclimates help: a mountain that spends a lot of quality time in the clouds pulls down significantly more snow than neighboring peaks, and the soft turns beneath the trees rule the mountain’s personality.

Perhaps most interesting are the myriad forms that trees take in winter—from tiny, hunched snowghosts, to improbable towering spearheads. For years I merely skied through these alabaster sentinels, paying little attention to what seemed a frozen plight. But some recent reading on tree biology has delivered me a different impression.

 

53ee103edcff

 

The statuesque nature of snow-encased trees, it turns out, reflects millions of years of evolution. You see, alpine firs and spruce and cedar are snow trees, exquisitely evolved in form and function to make use of the white stuff. When there’s a heavy load of snow, their pointed symmetry sheds just enough to allow the branches to bend but not break; in cold weather, they hold enough snow to protect buds and shoots; and melting snow from a tree’s branches drips in a circle to feed its roots, which require a steady moisture supply. Indeed, the entire arc of a snow tree’s spring, summer and fall existence is also in play as you ski by it in winter. In a sense then, some trees “like” snow. And that makes me love them even more.

Excerpted from Vie en montagne, hiver 2020.

 

Quelles frontières / What Limit? Winter-Spring ’21 Vie en Montagne Out Now

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