SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2013 DISCOVERY ADVENTURE ESCAPE 8 EXPLORER The Highs and Lows of the Tasmanian Coast. 4 HEADS UP Fasten Your Seat Belts, It’s Richard Simmons! 5 FRUGAL TRAVELER New Orleans on the Cheap: Heaven. By TIM NEVILLE Snow squeaked under my boots as I turned up the Rue Ste.-Anne and into the tangerine glow flowing from the street- lamps overhead. The storm that had blown in that afternoon had eased up for the moment, and in the distance I could just make out the sandstone spires of the St.-Michel church still shrouded in fog. Though Percé — a small coastal com- munity on the far eastern tip of the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec — has a handful of lovely cafes and taverns overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence, few places are large enough to hold hundreds of people at once. The church could. So on that night last February I opened its big, white doors, and eased into the warmth of the narthex. I gasped at what lay before me. Some 350 cross-country ski- ers with rubicund faces from three days of playing outside were packed in the nave that caterers had transformed into a mag- nificent dining hall. Pews ran perpendic- ular to the altar, and bread and wine sat on dozens of long wooden tables. Yak sau- sages and sauerkraut steamed in chafing dishes beneath the gaze of saints who peered down from white walls. A jazz band waited in the pulpit, but for now the air rang with the mournful notes of “Sposa son disprezzata” from a lone soprano in the loft. This had to be coolest ski week on earth. For the past decade, hundreds of cross- country skiers — nearly all of them from Quebec — have descended once a year on rural communities like Percé as part of a PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTINNE MUSCHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Quebec on Skis ROOM AND BOARDS Scenes from the Traversée de la Gaspésie, a six-day event that crosses the Gaspé Pen- insula. Percé Rock is in the background, top. Snow, crepes and music: joining hundreds on a traverse of the Gaspé Peninsula. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 By SUSAN STELLIN On a slow day over the holidays, I added up how many frequent flier miles I had in various accounts — more than 250,000 — and realized I should start cashing in those miles for free trips. Yes, I know how difficult this can be. When I called British Airways in Novem- ber to see if I could use points for a Christ- mas trip to Ireland, the agent laughed and said, “I doubt that.” But for all those who think it’s impossi- ble to book award flights, there are plenty who disagree. In fact, one study comparing award availability on different airlines found that it has actually gotten a little eas- ier to find seats in recent years. “When the economy does poorly, cash bookings go down, and that creates more opportunity for reward travelers,” said Jay Sorensen, president of the IdeaWorks Company, a travel consulting firm that compiles an annual ranking of award avail- ability based on thousands of attempts to book seats on popular routes. Last year’s study found that Southwest had the best availability (among domestic airlines), followed by United and JetBlue, then American and US Airways toward the bottom of the list. Delta ranked last. Your results in trying to land a trip may THE GETAWAY How to Get a Seat Out of Your Miles It can be difficult to cash in, but it’s not impossible, according to people who know. JOHN HERSEY CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 3 PARIS 3 MUMBAI 3 COSTA RICA 4 ROME 7 MINNEAPOLIS 9 KAPALAI, MALAYSIA 10 MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
Transcript
SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2013DISCOVERY ADVENTURE ESCAPE
8 EXPLORER The Highs and Lows of the Tasmanian Coast. 4 HEADS UP Fasten Your Seat Belts, It’s Richard Simmons! 5 FRUGAL TRAVELER New Orleans on the Cheap: Heaven.
By TIM NEVILLE
Snow squeaked under my boots as Iturned up the Rue Ste.-Anne and into thetangerine glow flowing from the street-lamps overhead. The storm that hadblown in that afternoon had eased up forthe moment, and in the distance I couldjust make out the sandstone spires of the St.-Michel church still shrouded in fog.
Though Percé — a small coastal com-munity on the far eastern tip of the GaspéPeninsula in Quebec — has a handful oflovely cafes and taverns overlooking theGulf of St. Lawrence, few places are largeenough to hold hundreds of people at once.The church could.
So on that night last February I openedits big, white doors, and eased into thewarmth of the narthex. I gasped at what
lay before me. Some 350 cross-country ski-ers with rubicund faces from three days ofplaying outside were packed in the navethat caterers had transformed into a mag-nificent dining hall. Pews ran perpendic-ular to the altar, and bread and wine sat ondozens of long wooden tables. Yak sau-sages and sauerkraut steamed in chafingdishes beneath the gaze of saints whopeered down from white walls. A jazz band
waited in the pulpit, but for now the airrang with the mournful notes of “Sposason disprezzata” from a lone soprano inthe loft.
This had to be coolest ski week on earth.
For the past decade, hundreds of cross-country skiers — nearly all of them fromQuebec — have descended once a year onrural communities like Percé as part of a
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTINNE MUSCHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Quebec on SkisROOM AND BOARDS
Scenes from the Traversée
de la Gaspésie, a six-day event
that crosses the Gaspé Pen-
insula. Percé Rock is in the
background, top.
Snow, crepes and music: joining hundreds on a traverse of the Gaspé Peninsula.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
By SUSAN STELLIN
On a slow day over the holidays, I addedup how many frequent flier miles I had invarious accounts — more than 250,000 —and realized I should start cashing in thosemiles for free trips.
Yes, I know how difficult this can be.When I called British Airways in Novem-ber to see if I could use points for a Christ-mas trip to Ireland, the agent laughed andsaid, “I doubt that.”
But for all those who think it’s impossi-ble to book award flights, there are plenty
who disagree. In fact, one study comparingaward availability on different airlinesfound that it has actually gotten a little eas-ier to find seats in recent years.
“When the economy does poorly, cashbookings go down, and that creates moreopportunity for reward travelers,” said JaySorensen, president of the IdeaWorksCompany, a travel consulting firm thatcompiles an annual ranking of award avail-ability based on thousands of attempts tobook seats on popular routes.
Last year’s study found that Southwesthad the best availability (among domesticairlines), followed by United and JetBlue,then American and US Airways toward thebottom of the list. Delta ranked last.
Your results in trying to land a trip may
THE GETAWAY
How to Get a Seat Out of Your MilesIt can be difficult to cash in, butit’s not impossible, according topeople who know.
JOHN HERSEY
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
3 P A R I S 3 M U M B A I 3 C O S T A R I C A 4 R O M E 7 M I N N E A P O L I S 9 K A P A L A I , M A L A Y S I A 1 0 M A R I N C O U N T Y , C A L I F O R N I A
6 TR THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2013
six-day, 100-mile-plus ski odyssey throughthe eastern pleats of Canada’s largestprovince. The Crossing of the Gaspé Pen-insula, or the Traversée de la Gaspésie, asit is known in French, is hardly a race.Rather, it is a roaming celebration of win-ter. And while the exact route changes ev-ery year, the idea is always the same: tocome together, have fun and ski.
“It’s always fantastic,” said ChantalHivon, a retired treasury employee fromMontreal, who was on her fourth crossingsince 2006. “It’s a demanding week, butalso recharging. The places you get to goare just incredible.”
Sandwiched between the St. LawrenceRiver and Chaleur Bay, the Gaspé holdssome of Quebec’s most impressive peaks.The Chic-Chocs soar up to around 4,000feet and collect more than 20 feet of snow-fall a year. Caribou and moose roam the re-gion, which has just 100,000 people spreadover an area about the size of one and ahalf Connecticuts.
The first event in 2003 was a true trav-erse, which meant 50-mile days with littlepampering. “The lucky ones got to sleepunder a table,” said Sharon Braverman, asimultaneous translator from Montrealwho was on that first trip. “You were so ex-hausted you didn’t care.”
These days the T.D.L.G. offers a softerexperience. Instead of traveling point-to-point on skis, participants spend a fewdays at a time in one spot — a lodge, inn ora local’s home — and slip out along trailsthat volunteers groom just for the event.Come evening, skiers return by bus to thesame base for communal meals at anyplace big enough to hold them all. Thegroup then travels by bus to the next townto explore anew.
As an avid skier in all its forms, I hadlearned of the crossing while researchingways to combine my twin passions forsnow and all things French. The eventsounded like one of those cross-state bicy-cle rides but on skis. Bands play along thetrails. Movie stars cook and entertain.There would be lectures by provincial ce-lebrities like the astronaut Julie Payetteand the pilot Robert Piché, a reformeddrug smuggler who once saved 306 livesaboard a malfunctioning Airbus. At theend of each day’s ski I could expect a trail-side party complete with an accordionplayer and shots of Caribou, a French Ca-nadian cocktail of wine and booze softenedwith warm maple syrup.
But most of all, I loved the idea of slip-ping into Quebec’s winter culture, which Iimagined as a mashup of New World rug-gedness and Old World bonhomie. Skiingwould almost be secondary.
Things kicked off on a gray Saturdaywhen buses rolled into the Gîte du Mont-Albert, a lodge deep in Gaspésie NationalPark, about 450 miles northeast of Montre-al — the journey’s first hub. We’d spendthe next two days exploring the park be-fore moving east to Percé and then northto the coastal town of Gaspé. The route in-cluded 110 miles of skiing in less than aweek. I’d never done that much in amonth.
The party was already under way whenI stepped off the bus. The air smelled ofspruce, and women in rubber muck bootsline-danced in the frozen parking lot. Oth-ers waited for ingots of boiled maple syrupto cool in a snow trough and turn to taffy —
la tire d’érable — that you eat with a stick.Sylvie Gallant, the accordion player,pumped out polka tunes, her hands clad inbaby blue gloves with threadbare finger-tips.
Claudine Roy, a gregarious 57-year-oldorganizer of the event, grabbed a mic andproposed a toast. “To this beautiful life thatunites us all!” she said dramatically, andhundreds of glasses shot into the air.
Eager to settle in, I headed off to myroom in an adjacent building, where Ifound two strangers getting comfortableon one of the beds.
“Uh, hi?” I said. “Is this Room 401?”
“It is!” replied a woman in perfect Eng-lish. “I’m Kathleen,” she said. “This is Rog-er.”
“Is there room for me?” I asked, hope-fully.
“Of course!” she said with a laugh.“Come in!”
I knew I’d be sharing a room since bedsare limited in a small place like this. I justhadn’t quite pictured such an intimate ar-rangement. But as we chatted over wineand fruitcake, I quickly warmed to theidea. Kathleen Ryan was a teacher. RogerLadouceur was a doctor. Both were fromMontreal and would be my roommates formuch of the trip.
The weather had been exceptionallymild for Quebec — low- to mid-20s — andthe next day was no different. “You arelucky!” said Billie Flynn, a test pilot basedout of Washington, D.C. “You heard aboutthe boat, right?” I had. One year skiersused a ship along the St. Lawrence Riveras a mobile base, but the weather turnedso “frette” — Québécois for colder thancold — that pack ice trapped them fordays. “It was wonderful,” recalled SophieFaucher, a Canadian actress in the film“Laurence Anyways” who hardly skis butcomes along to do poetry readings. “Theonly stress was, is there enough booze?”
There was, and this year, plenty of pan-cakes, too. I ate a shameful amount ofthem before heading out to ski below 2,425-foot Mont Ernest-Laforce. I could do thefull loop for about 25 miles or a shorter onefor 16 miles. I chose the 16.
It had been a while since I had cross-country skied in parallel tracks, the “clas-sic” form of the sport, but it is basically an
I found the Landrys about an hour laternear a rest stop where volunteers had abonfire going and were serving hot rumwith maple syrup. A tray of smoked mack-erel canapés floated by; I ate five of themwithout removing my poles.
Percé came into view once we crested ahill and began our descent. The town clungto a small cape and looked like a modelrailroad set without the tiny trains. PercéRock, a massive sea stack with a six-story-high arch, loomed off shore. Samuel deChamplain named it “pierced rock” whenhe sailed into the region in 1607, one yearbefore he founded Quebec City as the cap-ital of New France.
I found my way to a blue and whitehouse near the St.-Michel church, wherewe’d soon have the operatic dinner. A 67-year-old retired art teacher with red-frameglasses named Jeannette Myles answeredthe door.
“Entrez! Entrez!” she said, showing meto her living room. A piano sat in the cor-ner and a painting of a cellist hung on theknotty pine walls. Jeannette had volun-teered to host a few skiers since almost ev-erything is closed in Percé during the win-ter. Roger and Kathleen were already
there. My room had cheery blue walls andviews of the rock.
“I think I’m going to take tomorrow off,”Kathleen said, but by the time we all wentto bed she’d convinced herself that Day 4wouldn’t be so bad, which it wasn’t — 12miles mostly down to the tiny town of St.-Isidore. There locals opened their churchand stuffed it with table after table of des-serts: pudding chômeur, sucre à la crèmeand every imaginable tarte. Once againmusicians arrived and a dance partyerupted. When I wobbled across the finishline with the last of the sugar-bombedstragglers, dozens of schoolchildrencheered, rang cowbells, and held up signssaying “Vive la Gaspésie!”
I felt like a winner.
The weather deteriorated over the lastfew days, which made the going tough.More worrisome, Day 5 was to be the mostdemanding one: a 28-mile grind with somepunishing climbs. Kathleen got her day off,while Roger and I left Jeannette’s with bel-lies full of coffee, cinnamon-apple crepesand ham, and a plan to do our best.
In the interests of being fast, I had de-cided to change the wax on my skis for bet-
Snow, Crepes and Music: A Q
Dinner was in a church,the only place bigenough for 350 hungryskiers. Opera and jazzaccompanied the meal.
MAKING TRACKS On the way to Percé. About 100 miles were covered in a week.
TIM NEVILLE, who lives in Oregon, writes fre-
quently about the outdoors.
The 2013 Traversée de la Gas-
pésie takes place Feb. 16 to 23
and will go from Gaspésie Na-
tional Park to Gaspé. Fees range
from 1,100 Canadian dollars,
about the same in U.S. dollars,
for a dorm bed to 3,100 dollars
for a single room and include all
meals, accommodation, trans-
portation during the event and
nightly entertainment. Sign up
online or by calling the T.D.L.G.
offices in Gaspé (418-368-
8803; tdlg.qc.ca.). Expect to ski
about 22 miles a day on average
over intermediate terrain. Non-
skiers are welcome; guided
snowshoe excursions are of-
fered daily. Organizers can help
arrange rental gear.
To get there, fly into Montreal
or Quebec City. Charter buses
leave from Montreal (240 dol-
lars round trip) and Quebec City
(210 dollars round trip) to the
starting point on Feb. 16. Buy
tickets when signing up. Or you
can drive your own vehicle to
Gaspésie National Park and
have it delivered to you at the
end of the week for 120 dollars.
IF YOU GO
exaggerated walk. Soon I fell into a kick-glide rhythm and zipped past boughsdroopy with new snow. Peaks disappearedinto silver clouds. A snowmobiler motoredby with a guitarist on the back of his ma-chine.
“Salut, Teem!” a voice greeted me inFrench.
I had met Berthier Landry briefly on theride here. He was a 64-year-old civil ser-vant from Montreal with an athletic build.Hélène, his outdoorsy daughter and an ex-pert skier, had persuaded him to do theT.D.L.G. with her in 2006. The two havebeen coming back ever since.
“Ski with us!” Berthier said. I acceptedhappily, as I would for the rest of the week,figuring our paces might be similar sinceHélène, in her early 30s and fit, was sixmonths pregnant. I was wrong, but theLandrys waited for me patiently at reststops and at the tops of most hills, wherewe’d resume conversations about ski waxand parenting. At last we rounded a bendfor an easy 7.5-mile descent back.
By the time I was close enough to hear apolka tune wafting through the woods Icould barely stay upright. My skin wasbeet red and burning from the wind andcold. I had skied farther than I ever had,about 19 miles, (Berthier threw in an extrathree), and I ached all over. I hobbled backto the room to assess the damage whenKathleen and Roger limped through thedoor.
“I’m 50, and I’m in pain,” Kathleencroaked.
“I’m 60, and feel like a youth!” Rogerlied, reaching down for his toes. I sat onthe floor and yelped stretching a tenderglute.
Things improved over a dinner of scal-lops with grapefruit, and soon enough mybody adapted. I felt better skiing on Day 2toward 3,776-foot Mont Albert, but turnedback before the top to listen to members ofa Montreal folk band, La Fanfare Pour-pour, play in a trailside hut. A dance partyhad broken out. The windows were foggyfrom the heat of twirling bodies, and sun-light fell through them in gauzy puffs. Itapped my ski boots on the floor, still toosore to dance.
It was a three-hour ride the next day toPercé, where the bus took a right downRue Annett and stopped, allowing us to skithe final 13 miles into town. I clicked intomy rented Fischers and pushed off along afence separating small farms. “My path isnot a path, it is snow,” the separatist Que-bec poet Gilles Vigneault crooned in his1966 song, “Mon Pays.” “My country is nota country, it is winter.”
Indeed, the Great White North was at itsfinest. Before me spread an icy plain ofblinding snow — the frozen Gulf of St. Law-rence. The sky had turned a deep blue withwispy fleurs-de-lis for clouds. I steppedonto the ice and picked up the pace,thrilled to be gliding off the edge of a conti-nent.
“Merci la vie!” shouted a woman, hoist-ing her poles high.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
TR 7THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 2013
ter glide. But waxes work only with certaintemperatures and snow conditions, both ofwhich fluctuated wildly throughout theday. Soon I had anvils of snow frozen to thebottoms of my skis. Each foot weighed ten-fold and afforded zero glide.
“Do you have a thermometer?” Berthierpleaded when I found him about eightmiles in, struggling with the same glop. Ididn’t. He guessed the temperature andhelped me change waxes again. At least Icould glide on the downhills.
I had wasted so much time that I grewanxious about completing the route beforenightfall. The organizers had set up acheckpoint with a 3 p.m. cutoff time to dothe whole loop. Miss it and we’d be di-verted to a bus to take us to Gaspé, ourthird and final hub. Berthier and I skied insilence as the storm gathered. Fat, wetflakes stuck to my glasses and melteddown my neck. One minute I was freezing,the next, roasting. With no goggles I wasso blinded by the snow at times that Icould only look at my feet as I shuffledalong.
On and on we skied, making pit stops toslug chicken broth and fistfuls of nuts, butnever pausing for long. I was too wet, too
tired, too miserable to stop moving, fearingI’d never start again. Three o’clock cameand went, and we were miles from thecheckpoint. I was secretly relieved as Iheaded for the bus.
Conditions calmed the lower we went, asthe trees swaddled the trail, creating apocket of solace. A creek burbled under abridge and by muffins of snow piled onrocks. Berthier stopped to take it in. Othersdid too. Roger, whom I hadn’t seen forhours, came gliding up, just as a pink
streak opened overhead. Standing there onthe trail I realized this is what you comefor. The great food, the church parties,even the accordion and the shots: all of itwas really just candy on a stick. Here Icould feel my companions’ visceral love fora place so ruled by winter that the land andthe cold are inseparable. As a skier youcan glide through the best of both.
Tomorrow we’d head to Gaspé, a town of15,000 where Jacques Cartier staked aclaim for France in 1534. We’d ski along therocky spit of Forillon National Park andthen line up to slide right through down-town between columns of drummers andhundreds of locals welcoming us. Kathleenand Roger would get their own hotel room,which, after five days of sharing space, leftme a little lonely. We’d end at anotherchurch, where there’d be an oyster bar un-der a Jesus sculpture and a 27-piece banddoing Elvis and Ricky Martin covers.
For now, I lingered just a little longer,gazing at spindly birch limbs covered withsnow so confectioner-fine that they re-minded me of dessert. One by one my newfriends cast off down the trail and into thefog. I sped off after them on limbs that nolonger seemed to ache.
Quebec Traverse
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTINNE MUSCHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
