Helen Read on Cascade Valley. Photo by Chuck.
From Chuck’s pictures, it looks like the ungroomed portion of Cascade Valley beyond the 6K bridge is in nice shape with good skier-set tracks. Chuck’s photos have moose, wolf and hare tracks and a mountain side covered with sheep.
Moose Loop wind slab
West Bragg Creek: “It’s been an eventful few days with lots of track setting throughout the trail system. Considering there was an abundance of pouring rain a few days ago, the trails are in incredible shape. The rain was followed by at least 10cm of snow which in turn was blown around by high winds as evidenced by the solid wind slab that is pictured. Crews have been hard at work prepping for the weekend and we hope to get Elbow, Mountain View West and Telephone groomed and track set tomorrow.”
Moving the Moose Loop wind slab
Surprisingly, the Heritage Guides were able to trackset on Lake Louise today: “Double trackset with a separate walking path. Good condition. The walking and ski paths have frozen nicely but anywhere that isn’t packed has a slush layer, better to stay on the maintained trail.”
Also in Lake Louise, Moraine Lake road was trackset today.
Spray River East and West in Banff were trackset yesterday.
Moose loop after grooming
Lake O’Hara should have its weekly tracksetting tomorrow(Thursday).
The Ribbon Creek snow cat and team will be grooming at the Canadian Birkie from Feb 5-9. Grooming on the Ribbon trails will recommence Feb 10.
There is a Ski for Light race happening at the Elkwood campground loops in PLPP tomorrow(Thursday). My friend Peter Neumann will be guiding one of the blind skiers during this event.
I expect there will be tracksetting on the PLPP trails tonight. Check The Live Grooming Report in the morning.
Shaganappi golf course and Confederation golf course have both had recent grooming.
Canmore Nordic Centre: “Due to very hard snow from recent rains and now cold temperatures track setting is very difficult and will take a couple days to maintain on Meadowview and Bow, fresh skate lane today feb 5 but currently no trackset on these two trails.”
That wind slab on moose was quite the ordeal. An hour of shovel work by the groomer in order to get the track set through it using the equipment they have. And apparently they may have to truck snow to mountain view west to fix the wind stripped sections. The amount of work to keep things up to expected standards is huge when “blips” in weather happen. And they also do a fantastic job of it given what they have to work with. Clearly they are passionate about it and love what they do. Admirable. Kudos.