The Goat Creek bridge at 7K
That missile speeding down Goat Creek today was me. If you want to go breakneck fast, Goat Creek is your trail.
Goat Creek at 5K: Steve was returning from the Spray River bridge.
The tracks are well-polished and all the downhills are hard-packed. It was fun. Needless to say, I removed my skis for the final descent to the Goat Creek bridge.
Although very firm, the trail is not icy, however there’s no loose snow for snowplowing so the downhills are pretty much “unstoppable.”
Spray River West, about 4K from Banff
The air temperature at 12:40 pm at the Goat Creek trailhead was -5°C. I didn’t even think about clicking into my skis until I had walked down the first hill from the parking lot.
Can you spot the 4 skiers having lunch on the bank of the Spray River?
All was well and enjoyable for 13.3K to the Spray River loop junction. Spray River West is suffering from a bad case of needlemania. It started out okay, but as you get closer to Banff, the tree debris gets pretty bad. If I was to go back tomorrow, I would definitely use waxless skis. As you’ll see in the photos, my VR50(0/-4) wax was full of debris at the end of the ski trip.
As we have experienced frequently this winter, anytime the conditions are compromised, it snows. There’s snow in the forecast for the next three days so I hope it refreshes these trails.
