Why you should experience the North Side Access in Mont Tremblant.
The North Side Access is Tremblant’s untold entrance, the quieter, wilder counterpart to the resort’s celebrated south face, where adventure begins not with crowds but with calm.
Here, the mountain feels larger, the air colder, and the experience more intimate. The drive winds through pine forests and over crisp rivers, ending at a base where skiers, hikers, and mountain bikers gather not for spectacle but for solitude. The slopes here are steeper, shaded, and serene, a haven for locals who prefer the whisper of snow underfoot to the buzz of après-ski. In summer, the same paths reveal another life: trails cutting through mossy glades, streams threading through fern-covered gullies, sunlight breaking in golden shards across rock faces. This is the Tremblant that breathes, elemental and raw. The North Side Access isn’t about being seen; it’s about seeing, the mountain, the wilderness, and yourself within it.
What you didn’t know about the North Side Access.
The North Side Access opened in the mid-1960s, designed as both a relief valve and a revelation, an entryway that preserved the integrity of Tremblant’s wilder terrain.
Its development followed the mountain’s natural contours rather than carving against them, resulting in trails that flow with gravity’s rhythm instead of fighting it. The architecture here was intentional from the start: smaller lodges, wooden facades, and minimal commercial footprint, built to complement, not command, the landscape. Beneath the snow and soil runs an intricate network of mountain springs that once powered small logging operations before Tremblant became a destination. Engineers had to divert these underground flows through stone culverts to stabilize the base, a feat of design that still protects the slopes from erosion today. The North Side also sits in a different microclimate than the south, colder, quieter, with longer-lasting snow and fewer freeze-thaw cycles. It’s the mountain’s natural refrigerator, keeping conditions pristine well into April. Locals call it Tremblant’s “keeper of the powder,” a nickname earned by the way its shaded runs hold fresh snow for days after a storm. Hidden among the lifts and runs are remnants of old firewatch paths that once connected the Laurentian ranges, still faintly visible beneath the pines.
How to fold the North Side Access into your trip.
The North Side Access is best experienced as Tremblant’s backdoor to authenticity, the way the mountain was meant to be met.
If you’re skiing, arrive early via Chemin Duplessis before the crowds funnel to the main base. Parking is easy, lift lines are short, and the atmosphere feels almost private. The Duncan Express will carry you straight into the heart of Tremblant’s north terrain, steeper, quieter, and often kissed by the morning’s first light. Intermediate and advanced skiers will find untouched glades and long, winding runs that feel endless. In summer and fall, the access point transforms into the trailhead for mountain bikers, climbers, and hikers heading toward Lac Supérieur and the Mont-Tremblant National Park boundary. Pack a small picnic or stop at the rustic café near the base, the one with log benches and coffee that somehow tastes better in mountain air. If you’re visiting in autumn, the drive itself becomes the experience: a winding corridor of scarlet and gold that feels like stepping inside a painting. The North Side Access in Mont Tremblant isn’t just another way up the mountain, it’s the way back to what Tremblant has always been: raw, reverent, and real.
Hear it from the Foresyte community.
Not about action, all about pause. Pull up in a canoe, dock yourself on a bench, and suddenly nothing in life feels urgent.
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