Peter Lougheed Park - classic cross-country skiing!

Although this El Nino year hasn't deposited immense amounts of snow on us, it hasn't (yet) been -25C, and the snowfall has been reasonable. A check of the Alberta Basin's Snow data shows Three Isle Lake, in Kananaskis, as being on the high side of the normal range. Last year, we were on the low side of that range. And it showed as we were driving the Smith Dorrien Highway from Canmore to Peter Lougheed Provincial Park (PLPP) for another round of xc skiing on our favorite loop - Boulton Bridge, up Whiskeyjack/Pocaterra/Tyrwhitt, over Elk Pass, and out Fox Ck/Moraine (16-18 km?). Winds were blowing in the empty parking lot, making the -7C seem a lot colder. Easy wax pick: SkiGo HF Blue (-1 to -20C). Worked perfectly on the 2-3cm of new snow (deeper, or non-existent depending on wind action)!

As shown on the photos below, Whiskeyjack is aptly named for the ravenous crow-family birds that hang out at the picnic table at the top of the trail. I was putting a little chunk of bread atop my pole for a photo, and one of the little feathered flying dinosaurs grabbed the piece out of my fingers before I put it on the pole!

Tyrwhitt, as usual, was magical, and the wind had stopped blowing. Not so much sun, as light snowfall was escaping from the Elk Valley in BC. Windsift was filling the new grooming from Thursday, but it was light. The trail down Elk Pass was soft and easily manageable, albeit a bit slow - good for the double poling training.

Fox Creek was nicest we had seen it in years, as the photos below will also show. It too had been recently groomed. The flood-ravaged creek, with it's massive tree carnage was draped in lots of snow pillows. Even Moraine was in great shape. Back at the parking lot, one more car had pulled in....

December Alpine Ski Touring KCountry

Sometimes, December can be darn cold and windy in the shaded north-facing slopes of the Alberta Front Ranges, but Sunday's tour off the Smith-Dorrien Highway south of Canmore proved to be quite excellent. This week's snowfall laid down a very pleasant 10-50cm of light fluff, depending on the aspect. The light snowfall during this day came with no wind, balmy -3C, and little of the way of visibility. First, we spent 30 minutes fixing up the ice bridge over the first stream crossing, in hopes coming cold weather would set this up for the winter.

We were wary of a class 2.5 avalanche that was documented on the Kananaskis facebook page, so as we ventured into the hanging valley, we were eying the various avalanche paths, trying to determine exactly where that had occurred. Much to our surprise, we finally saw that the slide had taken out a gully that was skied fairly regularly. The visibility was very difficult, but we finally realized that it had likely been caused by a cornice collapse that fell off the 200m headwall, onto steep, unsupported fresh snow below. This precipitated the 40m wide slide that eventually found it's way down into that gully. At that moment, a few skiers and riders came down off the steep col, and eventually encountered the rubble (again, visibility was tough). A couple of them actually cut the steeper slopes of the gully beside the rubble, and did not precipitate any sliding. This suggested the storm layer was bonded better that one would think.

We ventured in the other direction, up an alternate fairly steep aspect. At one point, we stopped to dig a snow pit to see what was up. There was definitely a layer (the "Dec 4 layer") caused by a period of no snowfall, clear starry nights, and high winds. However, compression tests suggested the storm layer was bonded reasonably well - not so much that I would venture into extreme terrain.

With that in mind, we climbed high onto a moraine, had a bite, took the skins off our skis, and one at a time, made a hundred turns back to the bottom. Big grins and thumbs up had us climbing back up for another run. Excellent fun!!

On the way out, the other ice bridge had collapsed - likely due to somebody walking across, instead of using skis (or their split board). Again, we took our shovels, and spend time fixing it up for next time. Sort of a community service!

By the way - we saw a total of 5 moose(s?) between us on our travels. This area is alive and well with those gangly ungulates!

Mt Shark: the xc ski hamster track

We skied the Mt Shark cross-country trail system in Kananaskis Country today. The 5 and 10km loops were just groomed yesterday (Dec 2), as well as the main trail leading to Watridge Lake (probably down to the Spray Bridge). It was +4C with gusty Chinook winds as we pulled into the parking lot. Surprisingly, there were a few other cars there - but I don't think we saw more than 2 or 3 people on the trails all day.

The coniferous trees were shedding in the wind - but really not that bad. We started out with SkiGo Red HF (-3 to +1C), but ended up putting on a wee bit of SkiGo XC -1 to +3 just under the toe area. A little slick, but fast and not sticky. Didn't even have pine needles or other detritus on the kicker when we finished.

The grooming was excellent - soft and smooth! Easy turning in the tite corners. The entire biathalon area was groomed as well, so I'm thinking they are keeping the area up to snuff as a backup to the Canmore Nordic Centre (with so many important races coming up). That said, sometimes I refer to the loops as part of a big hamster track- or perhaps a hot wheels track. So many ups, downs, and all around! Glad they have one-way tracks...

We did the 10 km loop, with a run out to Watridge Lake and back for good measure. I always like the 15km loop, but the outer loop doesn't seem to get groomed anymore. But that's OK. Not complaining - whadda you want for nothing?