The man-made snow trails are in excellent condition at the Canmore Nordic Centre. Frozen Thunder has expanded considerably and is at least triple the original distance. It was busy – I had to go to the third parking lot to find a space to park.
The trails with man-made snow are in excellent condition.
The daylodge area has been trackset. With the cold temperatures, more snow is being made and trails are being expanded.
The natural snow trails are a different story, but depending where you go, some are in reasonably good early-season condition. Most have been roll-packed. Meadowview had good snow cover with the rare hazard, a bit of exposed dirt, a few ruts, but all easily avoidable. Banff trail, at a slightly lower elevation, was pretty sketchy but still skiable with rock skis.
The natural snow on Meadowview was in reasonably good early-season condition.
There was only one occasion where I decided to remove my skis. It was a drainage ditch that crosses Banff trail about 200 metres from the extreme west end of the Banff trail loop. I was walking up the hill, carrying my skis after crossing the drainage ditch which was strewn with rocks and dirt, and warned a downhill skier what was coming, but as you’ll see in the photos, he didn’t heed my warning.
Buying my season pass at the Canmore Nordic Centre
The air temperature was -7°C and the snow was probably around that temp as well. I used VR40(-4/-12) and had good grip, but after skiing on the abrasive man-made snow, I had to re-wax once.
The CNC season pass will now cover skiing on Frozen Thunder, no extra fee is required.
It snowed some more on Saturday night; I’d estimate we received about 7 cm in total over the weekend in Canmore.
