Where’s the best snow this weekend?
The trails in the north end of Peter Lougheed Prov Park(PLPP) have deteriorated significantly today(Fri) because of the warm weather. Any of the easier trails such as Pocaterra, Wheeler, Lodgepole are covered with pine needles from the strong winds and the snow is very wet, making it difficult to wax.
For my daytrip tomorrow(Sat), we are changing the venue to Mt Shark. The snow is much colder, and we have an easy and scenic trail, Watridge Lake Rd, which is trackset and appears to be in excellent condition. I saw lots of tracksetting on the other trails, too. Nine of us will heading out there tomorrow.
Watridge Lake Rd is an easy 5.5K trail which ends at the lake. If it’s a clear day, the scenery along the road is breathtaking.
The south end of PLPP had some new grooming and tracksetting today and these trails are in excellent condition(and yes, the snow is cold enough for your wax to work):
Elk Pass
Blueberry Hill
Hydroline
Patterson
Tyrwhitt has about 10 cm of fresh snow, but it’s still quite good with one skied-in track.
Whiskey Jack was not groomed and the snow was rather wet. It’s hard to say what condition it will be in tomorrow. Some cooler weather and fresh snow would really perk it up, as it was already trackset a few days ago. If anyone skis on it, please give us a report.
Lookout has lots of fresh snow over the recent tracksetting.
None of the above trails would be very appropriate for novice skiers. For example, starting out on Elk Pass, you have a 1K climb of about 100M elevation right out of the gate. It takes me about 10-12 minutes to climb, and I timed myself coming down today: 2Min 20 sec. and my skis were slow. You can divert the hill and take Fox Creek, but that presents a whole new set of challenges. It’s very narrow, single track, with trees at the most inopportune places, like at sharp corners. You have to be pretty nimble and a good step-turner to navigate this, especially if it happens to be icy and fast. Don’t endanger yourself or other skiers if you are not adept on these trails.
I could see the groomer made a pass over Pocaterra but it’s not trackset, and there are a lot of pine needles to get stuck in your wax. The snow was quite moist. Pocaterra Hut is NOT open.
Don’t forget, we’re also co-ordinating an intermediate/advanced trip to those excellent trails in PLPP on Sunday. Send me an email if you’d like to join the fun bobtruman@shaw.ca
Thanks again, Bob, for chatting with us today and for testing out the trail for us first! We started out on the Wheeler trail and decided to head further south for some colder temps. So, we skied Moraine and Fox Creek trails and looped onto Boulton back to the parking lot and had a fabulous time. We will be sure to join your group sometime in the near future! Great to meet you! – Charmaine and Darian
Ann, thanks for the heads-up on the clock. The blog does not update the time clock automatically, so I have to do it manually when daylight savings time ends, and I obviously went an hour in the wrong direction. I think I have it solved now.
Too bad about the warm weather…thanks for the update on conditions.
Sending this message to let you know that your blog is dated 20 Nov 09 at 9:02 pm. I am writing this the same evening at 7:52 pm so maybe your computer needs to have it’s clock set.