As I started up the big hill at the beginning of the Cascade Valley trail, my wax(VR45) didn’t give much grip in the areas where the trail was sun exposed. In the shady parts it was fine. I ran into Ray and Mary Perrott near the top of the big hill as they were just getting set for the final fast downhill. They had been all the way to the end, which I didn’t do, so I’ll let Mary describe the conditions:
Ray and Mary Perrott skied the entire 29K round trip on Cascade valley trail
“With high hopes we started up the Cascade Valley Trail. The sky was blue and sun shining, with temperature of about -7C. Track set was quite good up to the Cascade River Bridge, though the big hill had ice under thin snow in places.
Beyond the bridge to the warden cabin, the track was ‘soft’ probably due to many variables including warm weather last week, new dump of snow, temperatures when track setting occured, phase of the moon, alignment of the stars, and volcanic activity deep within the earth’s crust.
The meadow
We were first on this section of trail and for whatever reason, the tracks kept frequently collapsing on us. More than once I went over on an ankle as the snow gave way either to the right or the left, always unpredictably! It took us longer to get to the warden’s cabin than usual, with some disappointment at the slow descent down the last hill to the cabin before the drop off direct route through the trees.
Cascade valley beyond the campground is single trackset with a skating lane
The trip back was reasonably fast. All in all, a lovely day, fresh air, clean snow and great exercise!”
I also encountered a Banff park warden accompanying two French film makers who were shooting a feature film on Banff National Park for their viewers back in France and Belgium. They were planning to go as far as the Stoney warden’s cabin tonight.
I might be on French TV some time in the future
It appeared that Banff did not receive as much snow from the recent storm as we did in Canmore. There was about 5 cm of consolidated snow on top of the old snow pack.
Healy creek and Sundance in Banff National Park were trackset today. I wonder why Brewster creek isn’t being trackset anymore?
The weather forecast is predicting three more days where we should be able to use regular wax, but it’s getting very warm on the weekend.
