Today we skied some trails in PLPP(Peter Lougheed Prov Park) in Kananaskis Country, many of which had just been trackset for the first time on Friday. The parking lots at Pocaterra and the PLPP visitor centre were packed with vehicles. Hi to Carol and Katie at the PLPP visitor centre. All skiers appreciate the hard work you do to keep us informed of the trail conditions.
Jesse and Liliane at the Lynx/Amos junction
Everything we skied on today was in excellent condition with good tracks and good snow cover. Very nice temperature of -1 at the trailhead. Luckily, we encountered two skiers in the Boulton Creek parking lot who were just finishing, and who suggested not waxing too warm today. I’m glad we followed their advice because my wax was perfect. Good grip on all those steep hills but still lots of glide. We used VR45(obviously anything that expensive was found in Cheryl’s wax bag!) which is rated for -2/-8. We started with the big climb up Whiskey Jack. I counted fifteen skiers coming down today, some with big smiles, some with looks of fear and trepidation.
Click here to see more photos
Click here to see more photos
At the top, we skied the .5K to the Tyrwhitt junction and saw that it had a lot of new snow over top of the grooming. Skiers we talked to said it was still pretty good, but maybe a little slower going than usual. We chose to do the long downhill on Pocaterra which was fast and fun today. We then took Lynx, Amos, Woolley, Meadow, Lodgepole, Wheeler to return to Boulton Creek, about 25K in total. All the trails were trackset and in excellent shape. Whiskey Jack did have a fair bit of fresh snow, but it did not slow you down for climbing, and was probably welcomed by most of those coming down.
I talked to a skier who had stopped at Ribbon Creek and said the trails there looked pretty icy. Did anyone ski there?
Back to Lake Louise
- Skiing on Lake Louise
Boy, did they get a dump of snow in Lake Louise. The tracksetters were working hard to try and get things groomed, but it seemed like it was taking a long time to get it done with all the deep, fresh snow. It had been about six weeks since we had been here. We originally set out to do Redearth Creek again today, but decided to keep on driving a little further to Louise.
The Banff trail report had said “GROOMING: January 10: Great Divide trail and Lower Telemark Loop.” We get there and the Great Divide was just in the process of being groomed. There was one trackset lane, and no skating lane. The Telemark loop was skier-set through a foot of snow.
We ended up doing the Lake Louise shoreline, which was double trackset. It truly is a beautiful setting. There were ice climbers on the frozen waterfall above the lake. Click here to see more photos. We also did Tramline and some of the Bow River loop.
I see the Banff trail report is now saying that Goat Creek was trackset on Saturday.
