Peter, Pat and Chip on Elk Pass. Check the photo gallery to see what they are looking at.
We arrived at the Elk Pass trailhead to 5 cm of new snow, and closer to 10 cm as we gained elevation. Windy.com was reasonably correct with their prediction of 6 cm. All the other forecasts had predicted less than 6 cm.
The surroundings on Blueberry Hill were spectacular with all the fresh snow on the trees
Arriving at 11 a.m, we were happy to see some other skiers had already broken trail for us, and the track was pretty good. Much better then the bobsleigh run it had become before the snow.
Peter, Chip and Pat at the Elk Pass trailhead
We had a very enjoyable ski on Elk Pass and Blueberry Hill. Heavy cloud eliminated any chance of a view at Blueberry Hill, and it was windy up there, so we didn’t linger. We didn’t experience any wind until ten minutes from the top of Blueberry Hill.
The air and snow temperature at Elk Pass trailhead at 11 a.m. were both -3°C. With fresh snow, I used VR40 which is rated at -2/-8 in new snow. It wasn’t perfect but probably the best compromise for grip and to avoid icing.
Elk Pass near Patterson junction. The person on the left was walking back from the Elk Lakes cabin.
Windy.com is predicting 10 cm over the next three days at Elk Pass and 8 cm at Pocaterra. I expect we’ll see some grooming and tracksetting in PLPP before the weekend.
It looks like we may have some trails opening up at Emerald Lake if the 20 cm in the forecast for Yoho is correct. The Yoho Valley road was trackset today.
Sign at the Elk Pass – Hydroline junction.
The Great Divide, Upper and Lower Tramline at Lake Louise were trackset today.
With reference to the new rules for fat bikes in PLPP, we noticed a new sign at the first Hydroline junction directing “All non-skier traffic” to the appropriate trail, namely, Hydroline. I imagine there is another sign at the top of Hydroline directing traffic to the snowshoe trail.
Peter is standing at the bottom of the steep Hydroline hill. This trail, to the top of the hill, about 300 metres, will be multi-use.
If you haven’t seen the fat bike notice from Alberta Parks, you can read it here Fat biking in Kananaskis Country.
Basically, fatbikes are allowed on snowshoe trails. There are two places where fat bikes and skiers will share the trail and that is on the steep Hydroline hill and on the south side of the Elk Pass hill. In total, it might amount to 500 metres.
The parking lot at Confederation golf course is now open.
Canmore Nordic Centre
Banff trail is now open on man-made snow to the warming hut, which is about 2.6K from the daylodge. The biathlon trails will be closed over the next few days for races as follows:
- Thursday 13th – Classic Sprint – All day closure
- Friday 14th – Official training – 9am-12pm closure
- Saturday 15th – Interval Start Free – All day closure
- Sunday 16th – Mass Start Classic – All day closure
