From the moment that Ralph bought our group ticket to the top of Mont Tremblant he would occasionally mutter something about a Luge, without really explaining himself. Each time he mentioned it my curiosity was momentarily roused, then something would come along to distract me, so I never really took much notice. I assumed he was making some sort of attempt at a wind-up, but since I didn't know what on earth he was on about he was being unsuccessful. That's what I thought anyway.

Cut a long story short, whilst we were at the summit of Mt Tremblant, taking in the views and wot-not, the other members of the group started talking about this Luge too. It appeared that Ralph had unilaterally decided to treat everyone to this Luge too, tempted by some sort of group discount when the Mt Tremblant ascent and Luge were bought together. It also started to become apparent that not everyone was entirely looking forward to this Luge thing with the same enthusiasm as Ralph and (particularly) Giordino who I'd noted was more-or-less up for anything.

Whilst descending Mt Tremblant Ralph pointed out the Luge to the right. There was a narrow cement track snaking down the mountainside and there were buggy type things bombing down it at intervals. It looked like fun. So at the bottom we made our way over to the Luge, took a hard hat each from the bin, noted how moronic the hats made each other look, took photos for future proof, and stood in line for the cars to the top - this took a while. Once at the top, more waiting - maybe 20 minutes. Then you're at the front - the young instructors haul you into your buggy make sure you know how to start, stop and steer (I was mesmerised by their attempts to do this with some non-English-speaking Japanese in front of me who nodded furiously after each instruction but clearly had no idea of what had been said) and you're off at intervals of 20 seconds or so. Obviously it's your momentum that takes you down and your centre of gravity is so low that there's little chance of overturning, so it's basically as hair-raising as your use of the break (or lack of it) makes it. Ride lasts maybe a minute - which is the main down-side, and you only get one go, which is the other, but it is great fun.

I do have to say that as Ralph's treat I'm not entirely sure what the cost of all this was but I think it was about C$10 or C$12 each - which you could say is a bit pricey for a 30- and 40-minute wait and a 1-minute ride, but we weren't paying so that didn't come into the equation for us. At the end needless to say we found ourselves wanting another go.