Elk Pass near the Blueberry Hill junction on Nov 25, 2017. Will there be a repeat of these conditions this year?
Update Sat Nov 24 @ 8:45 am: 12 cm of good-quality snow in Calgary. Ray Perrott reports 1 cm in Canmore. Webcam at the PetroCan(Hwy 1&22) shows the ground is snow-covered whereas yesterday it was bare ground.
At 9:30 pm in Calgary, I have about 8 cm of high-density snow. The mountains aren’t receiving as much as the city from this upslope system, but I was happy to read MaSid’s report of snow throughout the day at Elk Pass. Hopefully it will be enough to allow more grooming on Elk Pass and Blueberry Hill.
The snow is predicted to continue throughout the night, so there might be some hope of Calgary golf courses being groomed. I have no idea if West Bragg Creek is receiving any of this snow.
I checked webcams when it was still daylight and didn’t see much snowfall at Dead Man’s or Castle Junction. Hugh reported 3 cm on the Great Divide at Lake Louise, and it was in the process of being groomed. If you want good conditions and trackset trails, the best bets for skiing tomorrow(Saturday) are still Moraine Lake road and the Great Divide.
Canmore Nordic Centre
Alberta Cup races at CNC this weekend will mean most of the skiable terrain will be closed to the public from 8 am to 5 pm. There is approximately 1K of tracksetting available to the public from the stadium to Jct 3 on Banff Trail.
Just realizing it’s race weekend at Louise too. Elk pass is a good option if ok without machine groomed tracks. I did see the piston bully gearing up yesterday morning at pocaterra but no live grooming report followed that eve.
The machines for Confed are in the shop getting some pre-season love. We expect them back Monday so this snow will hopefully be packed and groomed early next week.
Note Calgary Cycle has a Fat tire ride scheduled for MLR for Sat. Out to the lake. Will be lots of fat bikes on the road.
Calgary Cycle’s ride notice reads, “… This ride is rated intermediate due to the 20+ km length but does not require any technical skill… ” 20+ km assumes riding all the way to lake, with no mention of avalanche hazard for the final 2.5 km. Don’t know hazard level at the moment, but you’d think they should mention that.
Hwy 40 was just wet on the way back today in the late afternoon. Hwy 1 was dry until the cochrane turnoff at about 6pm.