Elk Pass

Ready for my fist ski of the season on Elk Pass. Nov 15, 2011

There’s skiable snow on Elk Pass. The first K up to the top of the big hill has been packed. I only saw one rock on the trail, so conditions were reasonably good. Still uneven, as we need more snow to fill in the little dips in the trail. I could have skied this section of trail on skinny skis, but as you can see in the photo, I had an old pair of beat-up, wide touring skis. I wasn’t expecting to see any grooming.

The air temperature was -11, but with the wind, it felt a lot cooler. I had to start out with my down jacket. If you are familiar with Elk Pass, you’ll know it doesn’t take long to get warmed up with a steep climb right out of the gate. The snow temp was -6.

At the top of the hill, the packing ended and it was powder snow, around 15-20 cm deep. This was one time when I was happy to see snowshoe tracks on the trail, as it made the skiing a lot easirer.

Down the other side to the Fox Creek junction where some skier tracks appeared, obviously from someone who came on the Fox Creek trail. Staying on Elk Pass, I followed these tracks as far as the Hydroline junction, and I must say, with the appropriate skis, this was a lot of fun.

Rather than taking the big hill on the return, I skied down Fox Creek and it was heavenly to be back on this delightful trail. It’s a narrow trail in thick forest, so in places the snow cover was thin. Although I hit bottom a few times,  I had no problems on my heavier, wider skis. I wouldn’t recommend going here on skinny skis.

Pocaterra is not skiable yet with only about 3 – 4 cm of snow, but the hut is open. The PLPP Visitor Centre is roped off with bear warning signs, and is closed until Dec 1 anyway. Whiskey Jack had about 9 cm of snow, and I could see skier tracks. It would be risky descending WJ on such a thin snow cover.

no images were found

******

Just a reminder, the entry deadline for the Free Ski Lessons is this Sunday.

If you didn’t notice, I’ve reconfigured the comments so the newest show first. That was necessary for the “Trip Reports” page, but it’s now like that on all pages.

Over 1000

For the first 15 days of November, this blog averaged 1045 views per day.

For those posting comments to the “Trip Reports” page, you’ll be happy to know your comments are being voraciously devoured by readers. In the past week, 534 hits have been recorded on that page. These have been the most popular posts/pages in the past 7 days: