April MTB conditions Canmore

Assessing the damage - photo by Paul G

Back in Canmore, recent snows had come and gone - we went for a mtn bike ride on Reclaimer, and into the Nordic Centre. Reclaimer requires a ride up the Spray Lakes Road, but at the moment that road is fairly quiet and not too dusty. Reclaimer is a downhill descent, and tons of fun! It was totally dry - but it is a fairly steep trip. After that we went into the Nordic Centre to do Soft Yogurt, which is a short but very fun rip - ending on Devonian Drop, which is a very short steep pitch. All good so far. On EKG, which is a favorite, there were sections of muddier track - especially near where the ski tracks were melting away. That said - not bad! We took Coal Chutes (black) down, and it was fine. But Georgetown is still very muddy.

Above picture is moments after a crash that John took. Clipped a pedal on a log that immediately flipped him over for a chin landing. Aside from some scrapes and bruises, he got lucky landing in mostly soft dirt mixed with roots. A reminder that mtn biking has it's moments! Generally not as soft to crash in as a meter of snow.

Whistler-Blackcomb

You can never be sure! The forecast for Whistler-Blackcomb sounded terrible: rain/showers, and 14C. But we had the trip planned out - meeting some friends from North Van and the Island. I drove out with several pairs of skis, and three mountain bikes, while my Canmore friends flew. The first thing you get over is the upload into the snow zone. Magically, the drizzle turned to snow at the top of the Wizard Chair (Blackcomb) on Friday April 10. The underlying base was absolutely solid (rains and warm weather), but it quickly got pretty nice with the storm, and there were very few skiers.

That changed Saturday as the skiers/boarders crawled out of the woodwork. We were back at the Wizard Chair at 8:15 - by the time we got to the Glacier Chair, which was not running, there was a fair lineup. We waited about 30 minutes, and were rewarded with what you see in the above picture. Reasonable visibility, and lots of new snow! The lineup for Spankys was already forming at the top! We ripped a few on Glacier, and then one down Blackcomb Glacier (Left-Left was very sketchy due to the underlying bulletproof base). Spent the afternoon on Seventh Heaven, which was very pleasant.

Next morning, we mountain biked the Frank Zappa-named singletracks around Lost Lake - what a great job they did building those! By the afternoon, we were skiing Whistler until the lifts closed. Harmony Bowl was great!

By Monday, there were only two of us left to have another storm day. We managed to ski Harmony and Peak chairs a couple of times, but the visibility was terrible. We retreated to the Red Chair for the remainder of the day, and it got better as the day went on.

Tuesday: had to stay another day! 10 cm overnight, and the Peak Chair runs were remarkable! Such a spectacle to watch the young bucks throwing themselves off the cliffs for the amusement of the line-up! To boot, it was the only bluebird day of the trip, and it does not get better than that.

All-in-all a great trip to the coast!

Back to Minnewanka

March 29 , 2015, and we headed to (the still frozen) Lake Minnewanka  in Banff National Park, to mountain bike the 30 km (return) singletrack that follows along the north shore of the huge lake. Since the slope faces south, drains well, and stays relatively low, it's a great early (or late) season ride. Winds were pretty stiff from the west, which gave us a great tail wind on the leg out. The way back, you're really having too much fun to notice the headwind.

This outstanding route is closed July 10 through September 15 to bikes - essentially because of berries along the trail that bring in the bears. And since a few of us have had encounters with bruins before, we make noise along the way, and try to stick together.

The Great Flood of June 2013 chewed out some of the creek bed crossings, but they were dry and easy to get through. We sawed a few of the trees that fell across the trail during the winter - but one or two big guys remain. As we had a few riders that hadn't been on bikes much this season, we turned around at the warden's cabin (15 km). But the trail does continue to Devil's Gap (27 km) if you are really fit. But, it could have a lot of deadfall, and tends to be a lot rougher. Overall, Minnewanka is a great destination! 

Warden's cabin, 15 km.

Minnewanka's frozen colours