Feb 27: West Bragg Creek. Photo by Steve Riggs
Feb 28, 2021:
West Bragg Creek Grooming Report from Boomer Groomer:
“A big shout out to volunteer groomers Bill, David, Peter and Jeremy. These fellas spent their Saturday night track setting close to 70km of trail for everyone’s enjoyment.
Thankyou Gentlemen!
Get it while you can as temps are shooting skyward on Sunday relatively early in the day.”
Starting later today, we will see above freezing temperatures at West Bragg Creek, Ribbon Creek, Canmore, Banff and Calgary.
The warm weather is predicted to continue for the forseeable future.
The places which have the best snow early in the season are also the places which will continue to have the best conditions now. Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Lake Louise and possibly Mt Shark will hopefully still have cold, waxable-conditions snow.
New tracksetting on Feb 27/28:
West Bragg Creek: Every trail has been trackset. The temperature at the trailhead at 7 a.m. is -5°C .
Kananaskis Village and Bill Milne trail:
“Kananaskis Village trails and Bill Milne trail from Ribbon Creek to Mt. Kidd RV Park groomed and trackset this evening after 5 to 7 cm new snow. Great conditions.”
Peter Lougheed Provincial Park: Whiskey Jack, Packers, Upper Pocaterra, and Lower Lake.
“A few flakes of snow on Saturday night but no real trace was noticeable on the grooming at the time it was completed. Friday night’s grooming will have 1 to 2 or so cm’s of snow on the surface, and all other trails will have from almost 5cm’s to possibly 10cm’s, depending on location and when they were last groomed.”
Canmore Nordic Centre: Most trails have been trackset over the past two nights. Check the CNC trail report for details.
Banff: Tunnel Mountain
Lake Louise: Great Divide, Lower Telemark, Moraine Lake Rd, Upper & Lower Tramline.
Confederation golf course: All trails were groomed and trackset on Feb 27. The predicted high in Calgary for today(Sunday) is +5°C.
Shaganappi golf course: Track setting was mostly redone Saturday evening
For me, it’s been “waxless ski” weather all winter! I purchased a pair of Rossignol RSkin skis on clearance from Wilson Mountain Sports in Lake Louise in April last year. They’re a relatively high-end pair, just below the X-Ium race line of skis, similar to the Rossignol Delta Course waxable skis I already had. I’ve been using the RSkins exclusively if the forecast high is above -3C or so, especially if a sunny day is forecast. But I’ve also used them in temperatures as low as -20C. I’ve skied a couple of times with one RSkin and one waxable for a head-to-head comparison in -20C and -8C, and was unable to detect any difference in either grip or glide. If anything, the RSkins were marginally better. The big difference is that with the RSkins, I don’t have to spend time scraping off old grip wax and carefully applying and corking in 4 or so thin layers of new wax in a pyramid pattern to get optimal performance. And I never have to reapply grip wax during the day, or get caught out by a wrong prediction on what wax to use. Nor do I have to worry about snow fleas and tree needles and other debris getting embedded in the grip wax. This winter seems to be particularly bad for wind and tree debris.
The RSkins are not maintenance-free however. They need to be occasionally cleaned and waterproofed. And of course both the RSkins and waxables have to be glide wax. The skin strips slowly wear out, and need to be replaced eventually at a cost of about $50, which I figure is about the same as the amount I would have spent on Swix VR grip waxes during that time period. So far, after 400km on the RSkins, there’s no noticeable skin wear.
Great day on ElkPass-Blueberry Hill. Snow awesome. 2hrs up-1hr down.