YYC XC SKI WEEKEND ROUNDUP UPDATE

CONCLUSION

Appears PLPP and Mount Shark best bets currently or possible Lake Louise area if the drive is safe.

MOUNT SHARK

"Today we had a fabulous day exploring the area around Mount Shark.

1. We skied the meadow trail below Mount Engadine Lodge. It’s a short trail but stunningly beautiful!! The lodge grooms the trail. We started from the Commonwealth Creek parking lot just past the bridge as you drive up the road to Mount Shark.

2. We skied about 3 km up the Commonwealth Creek Trail, a packed snowshoe trail but pretty flat, easy skiing, and incredibly beautiful!

3. We drove further up to the Mt Shark parking lot and skied an 11.5 km loop of Ursa Major, Virgo, Pegasus, and Hercules. The grooming and the tracksetting were phenomenal!

The loops we did are fairly advanced with endless steep hills but the Watridge Lake Trail is beginner friendly and it was in the best condition I’ve ever seen it. Guess the hikers were all working today!

The Mt Shark trails are dog friendly (on leash) and all loops are one direction. Note there are no maps on the trails!! There are signs but none of them indicate the difficulty level of the trails.

See the map below before you go: https://www.nordic-pulse.com/ski-areas/CA/AB/Mount-Shark

~ Tanya K. (Fri)

"Watridge Lake road at Mt Shark is the trail which runs through the middle of the system and is trackset for 5.6K. It has some small hills on the first 4.7K at which point there is a brutally steep downhill which twists and turns as it descends to the Spray River valley. It drops 80 metres in the space of .7K. I had to pry my legs out of the snowplow position at the bottom. For beginner skiers, there's a six lane training grid at the trailhead."

"The Smith-Dorrien was in excellent winter driving condition - very smooth with hard-packed snow. The exception was the 7K stretch between Sawmill and Chester which was washboard rough(like in the summer). Puzzling. Took the north route through Canmore on the way home and it was fine."

~Skier Bob! (Fri)

PLPP

"For the 3rd time this week I parked at Boulton Creek for a late ski ( -1C at 11:30am), maybe only 10 cars

Skied Whiskey Jack, Lookout, Tyrwhitt, Elk pass, Blueberry, Elk Pass, Boulton.

Excellent conditions / grooming on all the trails except Boulton (hard packed, icy, full of debris, etc..) I passed a couple of skiers walking on Bouton as it was too spicy for their liking.

I would definitely avoid Boulton (and most likely Fox and Moraine)….I met Maria (from this group) at Boulton bridge as she also had walked a bit of Boulton.

Excellent grip with Swix V45 / Violet and the tracks were fast today.

Highway 40 was clear."

~ Jean-Francois R (check out his magnifique pics!)

"Back at PLPP today. Parked at Bolton Bridge. That was a mistake. -2 at trail head at 10 a.m. Had to take my skis off twice on the ski from the parking lot to fox creek turn off. The trail was semi frozen/ glazed “messy”. Lots of things to trip you up. And the fox creek section was not great until close to the Elk pass intersection. From that point up to the top of a Elk PAss it was delightful. Fresh track set / dry winter snow. Tyrwitt has skier set tracks on both sides of the trail. See photos. The descent down Whiskey Jack gets more exciting the closer you get to the bottom. Roads pretty much dry."

~ Vanita H (Fri)

CNC

"Friday Funday! CNC. 2:15 start. New grooming. I skied a lot of the groomed and trackset trails, that were done early am today. Spring skiing conditions, hard n fast, so be careful on them downhills. A really beautiful LSD 24k classic ski. A fantastic destination for this weekend."

~Kamil K. (Fri)

WBC

"Conditions in West Bragg were better than expected today! I did East Crystal, Loggers Loop, West Crystal to Moose Connector and an out and back on Mountain Road. A friend told me Mountain View was sketchy coming down the hill to Mountain road, so I avoided that."

~ Terry T. (Fri)

SPRAY RIVER (WEST)

"Spray River west was very icy this morning, with lots of tree debris, really not fun. The east side was marginally better, but still very hard, fast and bumpy with plenty of debris. Not recommended until significantly more snow falls!"

~ Diana P. (Fri)

LAKE LOUISE

"Pretty amazing week at Lake Louise. The groomers are doing a good job of keeping up with so much new snow!"

~ Catherine M. (Thu)

"the road past Sunshine junction was packed ice and vehicles sliding everywhere at 9am"

~ Corina B. (Thu)

CASCADE VALLEY

"Skeptical today starting out on the Cascade Fire Road thinking we would bail and hike, but were pleasantly surprised! Temperature was +3 in the parking lot. Trail had a light coat of new snow and not much debris. Started late at 11:00, using a purple VR45. It worked quite well, probably because the sun mostly stayed away, which helped conditions. A bit icy on the big downhill back, and sluggish up to the parking lot."

~ Dorothy V. (Thu)

GOAT CREEK

"Skied Goat Creek today. The trail was heavy and wet by the time we left, and 2 hikers had trampled all over the track. If it freezes overnight and there is no snow, it won't be great tomorrow."

~ Katherine PL (Thu)

KANANASKIS VILLAGE/RIBBON CREEK

"This is near the far end of Ribbon Creek trail, before crossing the bridge over toward Kovach. Trackset getting shallow and some areas have a lot of debris, like this."

~ Lisa R. (Thu)

Confederation Park Nordic

"If it’s a bit above freezing probably still ok to head out however of it stays frozen then it’s fast, glazed tracks, solid skate lanes, and hang-on and pucker up for the downhills."

~ Rich W. (Thu)

- doing some snow farming!

- currently "pretty icy"

BONUS: MEET THE GROOMER - DYLAN, KANANASKIS, PLPP

"Meet your new K Country Groomer Dylan! We met Dylan in the parking lot of Elk Pass, and he was very curious how we liked the grooming on Blueberry Hill. It was excellent of course! Dylan is learning how to groom Blueberry, so he was skiing it today to make sure he knew all the stops and starts, proper cornering, and the like. We also met his brother, who lives...just across the street from me!!! Small world.

Conditions at Elk Pass/Blueberry Hill were excellent. We started at about 930 am, and were the second ones on the trail. Grooming was done Thursday afternoon, and was great for us. Temp was a bit above zero and we used V40 Blue the whole way on wacable and scales.

Best part??? Okay - there were 3 best parts. Nope, make that 4!

1. Blue skies at Blueberry Hill!!! When does that ever happen?

2. I met my buddy Michelle on the trail. I haven't seen her in FOREVER!

3. Met my buddy Hilary on the trail. She's a Ski Patrol for the cross-country trails. Sorry - no pic of Hilary.

4. It was my buddy Shannon's second day on cross-country skis, and she managed Blueberry Hill!!!

What to ski here? Click the link for the full trip report: https://alisendopf.com/2020/03/01/blueberry-hill/

~Alison D.

*Quotes from the invaluable XC Ski YYC FB Group moderated by Tanya K!

What did I miss!?

Anyone in RIbbon Creek/Kananaskis Village or other Canmore/Bow Valley areas recently?

***ORIGINALLY posted at Trail Lynx (not-for-profit social enterprise connecting YYC trail users with trail conditions and related small business, product reviews, etc) - Feel free to peruse and share with others, especially those not on FB ***

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