Adrienne’s trip report told the story: “Magic on Pipestone. What a beautiful day today with amazing tracks and tons of snow! Thanks to Andrew and Cherie for wonderful tracksetting, who we met in the trails working hard this afternoon. Pipestone – perfection, Merlin – marvelous, Drummond – divine, Hector – heavenly!”
Marvelous Merlin
I will add that the air temperature at 1:45 pm was -3°C so I applied one layer of VR45(-2/-8) to my previously waxed skis which had VR40. I had good grip and nice glide. There were two steep hills which I had to herringbone. It’s been so long since I’ve herringboned, I almost forgot how.
Divine Drummond
From the order in which Adrienne mentioned her trails, I expect I did exactly the same route which was 13.5K. I caught up to her and her two friends about 200 metres from the end. There are some residences nearby and a young father with his two little kids and a black lab puppy named Gunnar appeared at the trail to entertain us for a while.
The final 200 metres on Hector
Pipestone trails are dog-friendly, and I did see some paw prints on Hector. In total, I only saw six other skiers today. John and Liz right at the beginning, and a woman in a pink jacket(who obviously lives in Lake Louise) who said she skis the Pipestone trails every day!
Perfect Pipestone
Upon finishing Pipestone, I drove over to Moraine Lake road and skied the Fairview loop with a detour to the lake and the Chateau to have a look at the Ice Magic show.
Moraine Lake road was in great shape with about 2 cm of fresh snow over recent tracksetting. Fairview, which was trackset on Wednesday, already had about 10 cm of new snow which must have arrived on Friday night. By the time I finally headed back to my vehicle, I was moonlight skiing down Tramline.
