Once a year, for the past three years, I've repeated the following ritual:

• With some friends, I get on a bus close to midnight on a Thursday night.
• I travel overnight to a ski resort. Usually Jay Peak.
• Upon arriving bleary-eyed at about eight in the morning, I get changed and snowboard... all day.
• I vow never ever to repeat this again, telling myself that although the value is great, it's not worth losing a night of sleep for.
• I invariably repeat this process the next year, ignorning my own vows to never repeat.

Of course, I'm repeating this ritual once again in mid-December. The destination of choice: Mont Tremblant. If you've been around the blog for a while, you've probably seen my Mont Tremblant review from last year.I've only been to Tremblant once, and the conditions were garbage. That said, it wasn't the hill's fault: I went in mid-December 2006, which was famously terrible for ski resorts, as it didn't snow. Despite the lousy weather, I was really excited to return to Tremblant; the facilities were top-notch, and the mountain was a phenomenal size for the east coast. I'm looking forward to going back; I just hope the weather is a little more co-operative. I haven't experienced about half of the mountain yet!