Before I get started on my update, I wanted to let everyone know that we probably won’t get timely updates on three specific trails for the rest of the winter. Redearth Creek, Brewster Creek, and Lake O’Hara fire road all end at backcountry lodges, and the lodges are responsible for the tracksetting. The Banff and Yoho trail reports hardly ever update these trails once the lodges take over the grooming.
Sarah, Egan, Chad and Melody at 1.2K. They stopped so Chad could re-wax with a colder wax.
If you look at the Banff trail report, you’ll see it indicates Redearth Creek conditions are “snow covered.” Actually, it was trackset yesterday and is in good condition. The lodges usually do their maintenance on Thursdays if there is adequate snow to work with.
I really detest that ridge in the middle of the trail.
The temperature at Redearth Creek trailhead at 1 pm was -1°C and the snow looked borderline wet. It was enough to scare me into using my TwinSkins. A kilometre up the trail I could see the snow was dry enough that I could have used my waxable skis with VR50(0/-4).
The bridge over Lost Horse Creek at 6.9K
Exactly one kilometre from the trailhead is where the tracksetting started. The machine was sitting on the trail at the 1K mark.
Good tracks at 10K
At 1.2K, my thoughts about wax were confirmed when I met a group of skiers, three of whom were on fish-scale waxless and one who was on waxable. Chad, who was on waxable, was clumping with the red wax he was using for grip. He scraped it off and applied a colder wax(-1/-7) and he enjoyed his skiing much better after that. The group were on their way to Shadow Lake Lodge for the weekend.
The final 2.8K to Shadow Lake Lodge is snowmobile packed. On the left is the untracked trail to the warden’s cabin.
Other than right near the trailhead, the snow did not deteriorate today. With the temperature predicted to go down to -9 tonight, and a high of -2 tomorrow, the snow should be in fine shape on Saturday. The air was mostly calm but occasional gusts of wind brought down a few needles.
I met Ian and Darlene at 6.8K. Snazzy outfits!
The tracksetting continues to the 10.4K mark where the trail splits. The trail to Shadow Lake Lodge is snowmobile packed. There has been no packing of the trail to the warden’s cabin, so if someone wants to do it tomorrow, you’ll have snow which is 25 cm deep for the 250-metre distance to the warden’s cabin.
Redearth Creek is snow covered at the 7K bridge
As you will see in the photos, Redearth Creek has that horrible ridge in the middle of the trail. It’s not an issue right now with the powdery soft snow, but when the temperature rises to +6 next week, then freezes overnight, you will have a significant challenge coming down the steep hills on the return.
The snowmobile packed side of the trail is not wide enough to get a proper snowplow to slow yourself down, and there are ruts and tracks left by the snowmobile to make things even worse. My TwinSkins are slow, so today I could stay in the tracks all the way back. If I had been on my fast skis, I would have been hanging on for dear life. We got rid of the ridge on Goat Creek and it improved the skiing 100%.
Jeff is working late. The Ribbon Creek Live Grooming Report shows that Skogan Pass, Ribbon Creek, Ruthie’s, Troll Falls and some village trails were trackset today. Let’s see if anyone can ski Troll Falls before the tracks get walked in.
Thanks for all the trip reports. It’s wonderful to be able to get a read on how the snow is faring at the various venues. Nice to hear about Bowness Park being trackset.
Skiied into Sundance Lodge (on Brewster Creek trail) on Fri Feb 10, and back out on Sat Feb 11. Brewster Creek was trackset by our lodge hosts, and freshly set for our ski out of the lodge over ~5cm of fresh snow. Apparently there hasn’t been enough snow to trackset until the last couple of weeks. Conditions then were fine for waxless skis, and likely haven’t improved in the warm weather.
Unfortunately the people running the Shadow Lake and Brewster Creek lodges are not very good marketers or are not X-C skiers otherwise they would do a much better job of grooming trails to make them more ski friendly.
Making the trails easier to ski makes for better marketing- creating a larger market of skiers willing to ski the trails. The trails should be widened with snowmobiles as much as possible. The wider the trail, the easier it is to ski, particularly for novice skiers. Running snowmobiles down the same narrow track makes no sense from a skier perspective when the track can be widened at no extra cost. Tree branches should be trimmed to widen trails as well. Small trees and willows should be removed where required.
Think skier friendly.
James
Ski Resort Operations and Management
Hi Bob,
I’m still out grooming just to let you know Skogan was only Re groomed to the High level jct. About 6cm of new snow on the old grooming past there. The middle Skogan ice floe is now the Skogan Glacier best to take Hidden/ Nakiska if any one is doing the pass. Check the live grooming report in the morning for full details. Snowing lightly and -5 here a the Village with no wind should be great tomorrow.