The trails which were trackset yesterday were in fabulous condition: Terrace, Aspen, and Kovach. Tessa and I also ventured over to Ribbon creek(the Terrace downhill to Ribbon creek had good snow cover and was fun) to find that it was still in pretty nice shape. Link, which takes you from Ribbon creek to Kovach, was not so good, with lots of debris and the snow was verging on wet, so no grip.
Aspen trail. The top photo was taken two days ago before tracksetting.
As I mentioned yesterday, it’s truly amazing to see how much positive difference the tracksetting can make even when there is no new snow. I’ve included “before” and “after” photos of Aspen trail so you can see for yourself. A lot of the needles get embedded in the snow after tracksetting, and it might not be perfect, but it’s immeasurably better. Click on the photo for a larger image.
Temperatures were all over the place. When we started at 2 pm, the air temp at the village was -4°C, and the snow was -7°C. There was a very warm breeze as we skied on Ribbon creek and driving past there on the way home, the air temp was +6°C. Yet 5K north of the village, it had dropped again to -6°C.
School kids on Ribbon creek
I started out with VR40(-4/-12) but had to graduate up one notch to VR45 on Ribbon creek. I didn’t want to add anything stickier on Link because my wax would have just become a morass of sticky needles, so I was relegated to walking for at least half the distance. Reached Kovach, and the new tracksetting, and all was perfect again.
Katherine and Paul from PEI were enjoying the trails in Kananaskis
We climbed to the Kovach Lookout from the south approach, and there were a few more needles on the trail in spots, but nothing that would be any problem if you were descending. Descending from the lookout on the north side was super fast and the trail was in excellent condition.
I could see fresh corduroy heading up the Skogan pass trail, so there will probably be some more new tracks by tomorrow. Check the Kananaskis trail report for the latest update.
In Banff National Park, Cascade Valley and Redearth creek have been recently trackset.
You still have a few days to register for the Nipika loppet Register at Zone 4
The trails at Ribbon Creek and around the Delta hotel were FABULOUS and immaculately groomed on Thursday and Friday. We used purple.
I must have just missed you on some of those trails today! I skied some of the same trails and was very pleased with the way that the grooming had improved the ski quality! I also checked out the Bill Milne-Wedge Connector and Evan-Thomas trails, as they had been freshly groomed. They were all in great shape, with very few needles for most of the areas. As a general rule, you get lots of needles in areas of pine forest; very few needles but some cones in spruce forest; and very little debris at all in aspen groves or open areas.