West Bragg creek

I’ve been in Calgary for the past three days, preoccupied with events other than skiing. Thanks for all the trip reports. Today, I managed to get a couple hours of free time in the late afternoon and checked out West Bragg Creek.

…and some debris on Crystal Line West

I wish I could have been here on the weekend. I would have enjoyed seeing all the people and dogs having fun, and of course the snow would have been colder and in better shape.

Despite being +10°C, the snow was still reasonably nice, albeit tired-looking from heavy use. With the sun being low on the horizon, the trees are protecting the trails quite well. On the other hand, they are also depositing a lot of debris with the Chinook winds blowing so strong.

I used waxless skis and had excellent grip. With conditions as they are, a wider ski with metal edges would have been a better choice than my ultra-skinny skis. The chinook has blown a lot of debris onto the trails, so there’s another reason to use waxless skis. I removed my skis only once, to get around the ice flow on Crystal Line West.

The warm weather this week is going to take its toll on these trails, but it appears new snow and cold may come just in time to save them from too much deterioration. The forecast for Saturday predicts 10 cm of snow and a high of  -7°C.

All things considered, I still had a pleasant enough ski. Thankfully, I was going the right direction on Loggers loop. If I had been heading NW, the last steep downhill to the Crystal Line West junction would have put me in the hospital, I’m sure. Very marginal conditions with glazed snow, exposed rocks and dirt. It was no problem climbing this section however.

The nicest part of the day was the section of Sundog from Loggers to the parking lot. This was a fun downhill run with decent snow and only one exposed rock.

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