Bow River loop
Dec 11, 2019 (Click on the photos for a larger image)
Helen and Kazzy didn’t exaggerate or overstate anything yesterday in their glowing reports of the Bow River loop in Lake Louise. I can’t imagine how conditions could be any better. The snow, the tracksetting, the weather were all wonderful.
It was a day made for a pleasurable ski along the banks of the river and soaking in the magnificent scenery.
The temperature was -8°C at 12 noon with bright sun, a beautiful blue sky, and not a breath of wind. Once again I used old Swix green(-7/-13) and it performed flawlessly.
The photos I took were all on the south loop, counter-clockwise, starting at the small parking area just a bit south of the campground office. We skied across the big bridge which is double trackset, went for a short distance on the Campground Loop, then accessed the Bow River Loop as it headed south.
I remember skiing this stretch of trail one year during the Lake Louise to Banff loppet as the sun was coming up and thought I’d like to come back when I wasn’t in such a big hurry!
There was one minor inconvenience where an excavator was working immediately next to the trail and threw some rocks and dirt on the snow for a stretch of about five metres. This gave me a chance to use my brand new double-duty combo shovel and rock remover implement. Worked like a charm and it fits in my backpack and weighs almost nothing. I’ll do a separate blog post about it in the near future.
I also skied down Upper Tramline on nice tracks, stopping at Moraine Lake road to take a picture. It looked good.
On Lower Tramline, south of the MLR junction, a hiker walked in the tracks creating an incredible mess of post holes and divots. I thought, oh no, I have to ski on this mess for the next 3K. Hold on! After about 200 metres, the hiker decided it wasn’t any fun, so turned around and walked back to MLR, in the tracks!
The gallery includes a few photos from Tramline and one from MLR.
Off to an amazing start
I was thrilled to see Ezzy McBroom, the chocolate lab, on the trail
We’re off to a much better start to the ski season compared to last year. I was looking at some of my blog updates from 2018…
Dec 14, 2018: “We’ve had some nice early-season skiing at WBC, but that has come crashing down, literally.”
The early season at WBC has been epic this year and shows no sign of deteriorating.
We didn’t have many choices last year at this time…
Dec 15, 2018: “With a lack of other venues available for skiing, the Canmore Nordic Centre was incredibly busy today.”
We’re skiing in excellent conditions on many trails this year. Let’s hope it lasts.
