Heavenly Glide

Heavenly Glide. Painting of Iron Creek in WBC by Anne Brown

The above painting, entitled Heavenly Glide, by Anne Brown is Iron Creek trail in West Bragg Creek.

I had a wonderful ski on heavenly snow at WBC late this afternoon and had the pleasure of meeting Anne on the trail. I looked through my Iron Creek photos but I couldn’t find this exact location. Watch for it the next time you ski on Iron Creek.

Mountainview West. Photo by Boomer Groomer

All the trails except Telephone have been groomed and most have been trackset. Check the WBC trail report for details.

The temperature was somewhere in the vicinity of -7°C to -11. My car said -11, but the Swix thermometer at the trailhead registered -7 at 3 pm. Blue wax worked very well.

Boomer Groomer in the Snow Rabbit

I was getting set to ski on Mountain Road when I spotted the Snow Rabbit leaving the maintenance shed. It was being operated by none other than Boomer Groomer and we had a nice chat.

Boomer recommended Hostel Loop because it was in excellent condition with new tracksetting. I headed over there and he was proven correct.

Mountain Road at 3K

There are a few places where the tracksetting is down to the previous icy layer but it didn’t present any problems for grip because there is just enough new snow on top. It was easy to see how bad the trail conditions were before this snow because of all the embedded debris.

The first 1.7K of Mountain road(to the Moose Connector junction) had been well-used today but the tracks were still in good shape. With some more snow over the next few days, cold temperatures, and early-morning grooming, the conditions will only get better.

Hostel Loop

When I returned on Crystal Line West, I was amazed at how good the tracks were. They obviously had time to set up well, and the glide was fast. I could see that very few people had skied on it.

West Bragg Creek is always a joyful place to ski because of the many happy dogs which I get to see on the trails. As I left the trailhead, I observed three people leashing their dogs as they approached the parking lot. Dogs can run free on the trails, but are required to be leashed in the parking lot.

If the weather forecasts are correct, WBC should receive a further 10 cm of snow by Sunday.

Feb 3 Tracksetting

Strathmore golf course. Photo by Tracksetter Ed Meyer

Strathmore golf course

Goat Creek and Spray River

The Kananaskis Village trails were trackset earlier today. As I write this at 8:20 pm, the Bill Milne, Evan-Thomas and Wedge Connector are in the process of being trackset.

At Lake Louise, the following trails were trackset today: Great Divide, Upper & Lower Tramline, Moraine Lake Rd, and Townsite.

Yoho: “Joe did the Kicking Horse today from Field. It turned out totally awesome! And we saw a lynx sitting on the trail—got to watch him a bit before he headed off….nice crust and a tad of powder made for good tracks.”