-Ice Magic at Lake Louise-
After skiing the Pipestone trails yesterday, and although it was late, I ventured over to ski the Fairview loop, starting at Moraine Lake Road parking lot.
Click for larger image
Before I got started, I met someone who had come over to inspect the trail because of what she had heard about it being damaged by a person driving on it.
Skier on Moraine Lake Road
She told me that on Saturday night, an idiot decided to move the barricade and drive his SUV on the groomed ski trail otherwise known as Moraine Lake Road. He got stuck and asked a friend to pull him out. The friend also got stuck.
Lots of fresh snow on Fairview
Needless to say, they caused a lot of damage to the ski trail, but the damage has been repaired and the trail is open again.
I sure wish I had a photo so we could have another Caption Contest. No doubt he was a downhill skier.
MLR has about 2 cm of new snow over the recent grooming, but it’s in excellent shape. Fairview has at least 10 cm of snow over Wednesday’s grooming(Update: Jan 19 @ 11:58 a.m. Fairview was trackset today). At the end of Fairview, I skied over to the lake and took a few photos of the Ice Magic show.
I then enjoyed a nice moonlight ski down Tramline back to my car.
This reminds me of a right-of-way near my home where a bunch of idiots tied ropes to bushes and yanked them to pieces with their ATVs.
Something similar happened in Red Deer recently. Someone in an ATV tore up the trails at Riverbend – even did donuts at the intersects.
Moving the barracades and driving the road is way over the top.
But perhaps Lake Louise is a magnet for stupidity.
I was visiting the area a few years back, the first visit in many, many years.
I was restocking in Lake Louise village one beautiful September afternoon, heading from the Little Yoho to Lake O’Hara, when I started chatting with a young hiker from Missouri. He was doing a long trek, and had the ambition to try to head towards the Skoki area that afternoon.
I suggested that I could drive him to the trail head at Fish Creek, a place that I hadn’t seen in 30 years, and never in summer.
The place was a construction mess, with HUGE signs warning us not to go beyond this point.
Well, after we couldn’t find a reasonable trail head in all the brush, I innocently suggested that we just drive up a ways to see if there was a trail head. Well, of course, this was the temple lodge road. A work truck coming down the hill stopped us and the foreman gave me a polite dressing down. He honestly couldn’t believe that anyone with half a brain could go past the monster signage.
Anyway, they ended up giving the hiker a ride up to the lodge.
Hey, and I rarely downhill ski!
Doh!
I think the car dealership needs to include on the warranty terms “Voided if Used on a Ski Trail”
Numbskull
Those two are well on their way to winning a couple of Darwin awards! Morons!
Unbelievable! What exceptionally brain-dead morons. I hope they get lots of books thrown at them, followed by a very hefty fine!!
I also had the “downhill skier” thought 😉
Ouch, gotta say, those comments smart folks. We enjoy downhill skiing as well as XC, we often split our weekends doing both.
Its all about showing respect, for other people, places and things, which these two driver didn’t do when they made their decision. I agree, I hope there are some serious consequences for them.
…And some of us drive Jeeps no doubt.
I think they are poking fun at the decades of discrimination by downhill skiers who think cross country skiing is “boring” or “wimpy,” particularly until the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
I would call it a friendly rivalry where I don’t want to miss an opportunity to take a tongue-in-cheek jab at the darker side of the sport. My friend Chip(who leaves numerous reports on here) is also a downhiller and I was hoping he saw my comment.
“some of my best friends……” 🙂
Not fair. Some of downhill skiers are also cross country skiers and snowshoers!
Sorry, I meant to put a smiley face at the end of that sentence! -Bob
I understand Bob’s sense of humour and was on to his to his tongue-in-cheek aside- but good catch RJ.
Just to be fair, I have encountered several vehicles over the years either stuck on or broken down on cross country ski trails. Over 60% of those were not only jeeps but red ones. The interesting part is in all cases the drivers were not skiers period of any type. They are for the most part young men with a new toy that would rather drive anywhere than even think about getting out of their vehicle to enjoy the trails or the hills.
Same thing recently at Ribbon Creek. Again a Jeep had made it about 1/2 km down the trail and then slid off into the trees. Two guys were there trying to winch it out. My assumption is that someone stole it and took it for a joy ride otherwise again 2 exceptionally brain dead individuals…
You must be referring to this incident http://skierbob.ca/2015/11/caption-contest/
I hope Parks sent them the bill. Budgets are tight enough already.
I agree! My first thought was that I sure hope they fined them for that….it’s pretty obvious that the road is closed, and if you go as far as removing a barrier to go through, then ‘I didn’t know’ really doesn’t fly. Sounds like someone thought they were very special and didn’t need to exercise any respect in the parks for barriers put in place for good reason.
I skied Fairview to Moraine Lake Road up Tramline on Sunday – when we were driving up to the Chateau the entrance to MLR was closed, and now I know it was a tow truck! There was a huge hole in the snow, I couldn’t figure out what it was. What a dolt!