Hydroline. Photo by Steve Riggs
Thanks to Steve Riggs for the following report. You can see more of Steve’s spectacular photos here. If you’re new to this blog, PLPP stands for Peter Lougheed Provincial Park in Kananaskis Country. This area is expecting 5-10 cm of new snow today.
Nov 9, 2020: TYRWHITT-LOOKOUT, today via the Hwy 40 backdoor access. Good early season skiing thoughout with skier tracksetting in roughly 7 cm recent snow over a hard base.
Kananaskis Fire Lookout. Photo by Steve Riggs
Expect wobbly skiing especially on Tyrwhitt which also has some dips and detours at drainage crossings to watch out for. None of which pose a real problem.
From Elk Pass, the skiing north on Hydroline was delightful, with a good skier track over a consistent base, full on sunshine after escaping the light cloud creeping over Elk Pass from BC, and the breeze at my back!
Watch out for sheep on Hwy 40. Photo by Steve Riggs
Ascending Lookout south was sloggish as usual- I would not recommend descending it on xc skis until there is a decent refresh of new snow, as the steep bits have been chopped up by descending skiers, as well as a moose that went up and then back down the whole south side.
With the new snow- the north side descent was easygoing, but the hard and sometimes uneven base did not lend itself to good turns on my 54 mm waisted metal edge light touring skis, leading to snowplowing the steeper bits. All in all-a very fine day to be out!
West Bragg Creek parking lot Nov 10 at 8:30 a.m.
West Bragg Creek update
Alf Skrastins submitted this Monday update for WBC: “As of this evening there was 1 cm of snow at WBC, on top of treacherous ice or frozen dirt. No skiing until there is a significant snowfall.”
West Bragg should be receiving snow today(Tuesday) but the amount remains to be seen. The parking lot is already snow-covered this morning.
Kananaskis pass sales
Season pass sales have surpassed 1200. Along with donations, we are 35% of the way towards the goal of $200,000. Buy your Kananaskis parking pass.
Nice one Steve, great photos. That’s a brave sheep, hunting season and all? Or maybe he knows he’s not legal yet.
So far Kananaskis remote weather stations aren’t showing that much new snow (highwood and mud lake). So maybe Bragg is lucking out. Assuming if enough they will roller pack it to help prepare the next base. At least temps will be cool.