Goat creek was awesome

Until today, we’ve never had tracksetting on the first 900 metres of the Goat creek trail. The initial section of the trail is in Kananaskis country, the remaining portion is in Banff National Park. Consequently, the tracksetter, starting on the Spray river in Banff, would never go past the boundary.

Tracksetting on Goat creek started right out of the gate. This is about 500 metres from the trailhead

With the Spray river bridge out(at 10K), to access the Goat creek trail, there is no choice for the tracksetter but to start at the Kananaskis end. I had no sooner reached the bottom of the first hill, about 100 metres in, and the tracks were there.

The temperature had reached its forecast high of -21°C when I started out at 2:45 pm. The polar wax snow temp was -25.

Good to see that Reggie the dog had his boots on

The Banff trail report indicated the tracksetting only went as far as the Goat creek bridge at 7K. With the weather as cold as it was, I didn’t even go that far. I turned around at 4.3K which is where the first bridge is. Or should I say, isn’t. The trail does a dipsy-doodle down and right back up the other bank, no problem. The lumber for the bridge has been sitting beside the trail since August.

Welcome to Banff National Park. The trail was double trackset starting at this sign; single trackset from the trailhead to this sign which is 900 metres in.

The snow coverage is good with no rocks or dirt in the tracks. The tracks are great in places, but periodically they almost disappear and I’m guessing it’s because the snow was so cold while being trackset. No complaints from me, as I’m thrilled to have this wonderful trail to ski on.

The snowshoers are trying to stay in the middle, and out of the tracks, not always succeeding.

Although the weather was bitterly cold, I had no problems. Mitts, heavy toque, down-filled jacket, buff, and toe-warmers.

I was feeling kind of lonely, being the only one Krazee enough to be out on such a cold day, but as I was almost back, I met two other groups who were just starting out. I can’t imagine they’d be out for very long with the sun already dipping behind the mountains. The telltale tracks in the middle told me that some snowshoers had been out earlier.

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