Early-season big snowfall

 – Fresh snow on the Salt Lake trail at Canmore Nordic Centre – 

Every April we get that 30 cm dump of snow and wonder why it can’t come in November. Our wish came true this year. In Canmore, world headquarters of SkiHere received 28 cm of dry, powdery snow and there’s a bit more in the forecast for tonight.

Natural snow on the Banff Trail Loop

Natural snow on the Banff Trail Loop

After shovelling for two hours, I still had a little energy to check out the nordic centre. Miles Tindal already gave an accurate update on the Trip Reports, but I’ll fill in a few more details.

The trails would have already received about 15 cm of snow when they were groomed and trackset this morning. By 4 pm, there was another 10 – 15 cm  of new snow, just as Miles reported.

Piles of snow waiting to be groomed

Piles of snow waiting to be groomed

The snowmobiles were buzzing around as maintenance crews went about their snow-making duties, and in the process were packing some trails which made the skiing a little easier. With a temperature of -15°C, the snowguns were blasting out a lot of new snow.

This snowfall should make all the natural snow trails at CNC reasonably good, with most hazards being covered, although I don’t know if there’s enough to trackset yet. The man-made snow trails should be in wonderful shape tomorrow with all that new snow mixed in.

We already have a report of 30 cm on the Spray River from Chuck. It will be interesting to see how much snow fell at all our other favourite venues such as the Ribbon creek trails, PLPP, and the other Banff trails. Let us know what you find if you venture out. From Chuck’s photos, it looks like another precarious bridge in Banff.

One Comment:

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  1. Hi Bob,
    30cm measured at the Kananaskis Village around 1 today. This snow is so cold and dry it packs down to less than 2″. Currently the Pisten Bulley is down but trails are being skidoo packed, this is the storm we needed to set up the rest of the winter.

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