New snow at Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. Photo by JeremyN
Dec 20, 2019
It’s snowing heavily in the mountains. So far only a sprinkle of rain in Calgary. Cross-country skiers are jumping for joy at the promise of many new trackset trails!
Look for further snowfall updates as tonight’s Trip Reports come in.
Avalanche awareness…thanks to MaSid for this reminder…
“Kananaskis public safety reported on the Avalanche bulletin at the end of today 25 cm on the spray lakes road and anticipating another 40 cm tomorrow. Warm snow and winds are making for widespread slab development and high Avalanche risk as a result. Be wary of Avalanche run outs next few days.”
I wrote a blog post last winter which indicates the groomed xc trails which have exposure to Avalanche Danger.
Kananaskis Village/Ribbon Creek: “All of the trails have been blanketed with 35-40cm of new snow with more on the way. All of the grooming on the 20th is grooming only. The new snow is very wet and will require colder temperatures before it can be trackset. Grooming will be ongoing over the next few days once temperatures cool down.”
Mud Lake weather station shows 30 cm to 8 pm.
Canmore Nordic Centre: Hugh’s trail report… “Up to 20 CM of fresh soft snow. More accumulation further out.”
The Lake Louise trail report indicated 15-25 cm early this morning.
Yoho trail report: “20 cms fresh snow. Additional snowfall amounts of 20-40 cms expected by Saturday afternoon.”
Ruth at Golden, BC said they had received 10 cm by 10 a.m. and it was still snowing heavily.
Posted at 11 a.m. on Bow Valley Road Conditions: “Canmore to Banff tons of snow and very slippery on 7 mile hill. Two more cars in ditch as tow trucks and police clear an accident.”
The Bow Valley Parkway Trail Report indicates that Castle Junction to Castle Lookout has been groomed. It doesn’t indicate trackset, so I would assume it is roller-packed. I imagine it’s all covered with fresh snow.
The photos below were taken around 10 a.m.
West Bragg Creek
It got pretty warm and sticky at WBC later in the afternoon, then it started to rain. It looked like the rain was starting to turn to snow towards Moose Mountain, so hopefully that means fresh snow for tomorrow.
Coal mine at ribbon creek was trackset today according to grooming report. Presumably in the middle of doing more.
It looks like Tracksetter Jeff went out for a test run but found the snow too wet to be worked properly.
Kananaskis public safety reported on the Avalanche bulletin at the end of today 25 cm on the spray lakes road and anticipating another 40 cm tomorrow. Warm snow and winds are making for widespread slab development and high Avalanche risk as a result. Be wary of Avalanche run outs next few days.