Start of the Nipika Loppet
Midnight is the deadline to register for the Nipika Loppet which goes this weekend.
The Pipestone trails at Lake Louise were trackset yesterday. I had to laugh when I read the trip reports from Chris, and from gh, about the couches. They are becoming very popular gathering spots.
Mike W was on his toes and saw the trail report for West Bragg Creek last night. With 4 cm of new snow, some trails have been groomed(not trackset).
“Best bets are West and East Crystal Lines, Sundog, and Hostel Meadow. Out lying trails are not recommended at present due to thin snow cover and hazards.”
Not much green showing on the PLPP report this morning. Moraine looks like it was snowmobile trackset yesterday. There might be a late report to come.
Watridge Lake road was trackset at Mt Shark on Tuesday night.
The southeast corner of Alberta must have received some of this recent snow. The Spring Creek trails at Cypress Hills were groomed and partially trackset on Tuesday.
Lost and Found
Did anyone find gh’s fanny pack and wax kit?
“I dropped my fanny pack with my wax kit at either the shower parking lot at Bolton or the information centre parking lot last week. The information centre does not have it. Perhaps if someone picked it up, it could make its way to the information centre.”
Is it just me or has there been a less than normal amount of grooming in PLPP this year? Elk Pass area obviously has the best snow but looks like it hasn’t been done in 5 days, on Sunday it was pretty beat up. Its probably extremely beat up now. They just change the date on the grooming report. In a case like this, some communication goes a long way, is their Cat down, short staffed, budget cuts? otherwise people will check the report every morning and make up their own reasons , and they’re usually not positive. Any ideas?
Seems it may be related to snowfall, or lack thereof, reading between the lines of the PLPP cross country ski trail report, possibly awaiting a dump to allow more extensive grooming in one work session.
Mike Norton – You said “They just change the date on the grooming report”. I assume you’re talking about the large bold text at the top of the report, e.g. “Report at 24-Jan, 5:01PM MST”. I’m always (mildy) annoyed by that. The text is generated by the website and has nothing to do with PLPP or the groomers. It simply shows the time when you opened or last refreshed the web page. Basically it tells you what time it is, in case you don’t have a watch, clock, or phone! 😉
I’ve found that the reports themselves always contain the date (and sometimes time) the report was posted. For example the current one begins with “Jan 17th: A few very light flurries fell on Friday evening in PLPP,…”. Parts of the report often recycle the same text from the previous report, but that’s due to the fact that nothing has changed thanks to the current snow drought.
As far as the grooming frequency is concerned, I think a couple of weeks ago Bob mentioned something about staffing or equipment issues. It would be nice if such issues were noted in the reports. Also, it has always been a mystery for me as to what determines when grooming is done. Perhaps Bob will interview a groomer in one of his upcoming articles! 😉
There is a clear need for seating options along pipestone and other Louise trails, especially in protected sunny spots with a view. And with fresh pipestone grooming, perhaps an expansion is in order. If anybody is out there today, stomping out some snow for making blocks would help immensely.