-The Silver City hand-off is where the road intersects the ski trail.-
I didn’t want to pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the historic location of Silver City in the title of an update.
After taking the hand off at Silver City, Castle Mountain will be in your rear-view mirror
This is the fifth leg of the shortened Lake Louise to Banff loppet which is being held tomorrow (Sunday). Thanks to Mary, Hugh, Helen and gh for their updates on other sections of the trail.
On the way to Johnston Canyon
The trail through Moose Meadows
For the first time in 15 years I didn’t enter the loppet as a racer, but I will be out there as a volunteer.
The organizers were faced with a lot of challenges for this year’s event. There’s been much disruption to the course because of AltaLink’s ongoing construction and for some reason this winter, there are more ice flows than we’ve ever seen. A deeper snow pack could have fixed a lot of the problems, but it’s probably the thinnest snow pack I’ve ever seen.
The trail as it leaves Moose Meadows
A thin snow pack also means a lot of twigs, grass, and needles that would have normally been covered with snow are exposed. I purposely skied through all the debris I could find, and was pleasantly surprised that my wax had not picked up anything at the end of my ski. That’s the advantage of cold snow.
The end of the tracksetting at Johnston Canyon campground
The temperature of the snow at Castle junction was -11 and the air temp was -10 around 1 pm. I used VR40(-4/-12) and it worked well.
These skiers chose to walk through the campground to the start of leg 6(Johnston Canyon to Sawback).
In the 1880’s there were six hotels at Silver City. For such a flamboyant name, there’s nothing much to see at the Silver City hand-off except for a communications tower about 100 metres to the south. There is a pullout near the access road with an interpretive sign.
“…Silver City, where in a period of two years it would see more than 3,000 silver-hungry prospectors lay their tents in high hopes of prosperity.”
These tourists were walking in the ski tracks but moved to the side when they saw me taking photos
Read more about historic Silver City
Things have changed at Johnston Canyon campground. Parks is plowing the parking lot, so it will be difficult to see them putting a trail through it this year. You’ll have a choice of walking about 300 metres or skiing on the road. The latest update from the loppet organizers states…
“The road in the campground has been plowed, but sufficient snow remains for you to ski on the road for the last 300m to the checkpoint.”
The reason Parks is plowing the parking lot is to allow tourists who are going to Johnston Canyon to park there. Today, a group of people were returning to their vehicles, and walking right in the ski tracks. When they saw me taking photos, they all stepped to the side of the trail, so they knew darn well they weren’t supposed to be walking in the tracks.
Today we skied the Kicking Horse Trail in Yoho. The trail was in perfect condition, just groomed yesterday. Nice gliding and views. Skied Emerald Lake yesterday, it was very nice after you got across Emerald Lake which was very icy. Not sure if its my imagination or not but I think fewer people were walking on the Yoho ski trails, the Club does a fine job of addressing that issue at the start of each trail with their signs.
Met a visitor who stepped into Emerald Lake knee deep yesterday so be sure to stay on the hard trails.
Thank you so much Bob, I think that those tourists should be identified and given a hefty ticket just like it is done in Europe.
Thank you for the preamble and historical snippit on this epic cross country loppet -one I hope to someday partake. Never ceases to amaze me the ignorance of people that doc know better. (Incidentally, their were 2 sets of boot prints through the entire, & most challenging, 5km loop at MtShark on Friday …I was astonished not just one, but two people would be so daft!)