Kiana on her new skate skis with dad Brad
This will be a good opportunity to mention World Snow Day at the Canmore Nordic Centre on Sunday Jan 19. The CNC will be offering free skiing for children (6 – 11 years) and juniors (12 – 17 years). Trail Sports will be offering free rentals for those 11 years and below on cross country skis and skates.
The conditions are better than you might expect. I was using my waxless zero skis with great success, but the snow was cold and you may have been able to use wax for grip today.
Natural snow on Banff trail
The two classic skiers who I spoke with were both using klister. Doug had a couple pine needles stuck in his, but all things considered, there was very little debris. The tracks were in excellent condition.
It was nice to see Brad and his daughter Kiana skate skiing together. Kiana was trying out her new skate skis for the first time. I wish I would have started skiing at her age.
Canmore Nordic Centre
I skied mostly on the man-made snow, but ventured out onto the natural snow briefly on Banff trail and on the trails which meander through the middle of the mine meadow, knowing they would have been sun-exposed for most of the day. The snow was still in nice shape, much more like snow than ice.
The air temperature was +2°C in late afternoon. It did not reach the predicted high of +7, although that’s the predicted high again for tomorrow in Canmore.
I’m saving my energy for Sunday so I only skied about 7K today. Good luck to everyone in the Lake Louise to Banff loppet. I’ll see you on the lake on Sunday morning. It’ll seem weird starting out in the daylight.
In Banff, Redearth creek, Sundance and Healy creek have all been trackset in the past two days.
We know from the Live Grooming Report that the Mt Shark trails were done last night and it seems to be staying cold enough to preserve the fine conditions. Good to see Watridge Lake road is trackset all the way to the Spray river. Be careful on that last downhill to the river, it’s fast with tight turns.
