Add a comment
Print report
Moraine Lake after a few km's on Red Earth Creek Trail
Report Submitted by Normand
(trip) Date: Saturday Apr 16, 2022
Submitted: Saturday Apr 16, 2022 at 21:54
Participants:
Me
Discussion:
My initial plan was to ski tour higher up in the Shadow Lake area (again). My expectations for skiable conditions were low, for the lower part of the Red Earth Creek trail, reading Mr Democracy report a week ago. Well, it was much worse than I was willing to bargain for. 80-100% ice to start with and remaining the same for the first 1.5 km. Not knowing how far it would take higher up to get better, even with skins or klister. I turned around and walked back to the parking lot. Trying to get edging downhill in such icy conditions was borderline suicidal, even in the shallow downhill sections. Glad I turned around, to prevent a longer walk back. So I settled for Moraine Lake instead. VR45 worked well with a dusting of snow on the old tracksetting. Blue sky with stunning view of the peaks above the lake. Only saw 4 skiers coming up on my way down. The return was fast and I was glad to have metal edges, to avoid being airborned to the Wapta Icefields!
 Name that lake.
 Still decent track setting on the Moraine Lake Trail; very glazed and fast coming down.
 Heading into Moraine Lake, about 200 m after the end of formal track setting.
 Walking down the steep hill to the Red Earth Creek parking lot; thanks to the poles.
 About 1.5 km up on REC trail; good hiking conditions … with crampons.
3 comment(s) posted
Comments:
2022-04-16 at 22:13 - comment by ulrikeski
Beautiful picture of Moraine Lake in the sunshine. It looks like it might be possible to skate ski on the lake?
2022-04-17 at 09:19 - comment by Normand
Nice suggestion and certainly possible this time of the year.
2022-04-17 at 12:45 - comment by DEMOCRATIZE AB
Howdy Normand,
If you would have gone up Redearth above the big hills conditions would have improved particularly before the first avalanche path. When I went up last Monday a little groppel fell on the icy section of the trail which gave me some grip skiing up the ice. Coming down required all the power in my legs to snowplow down and control my speed so I would not crash and burn. It was a ski or die situation on my metal edge skis. Stopping was extremely difficult and required more distance to stop a car from 100 kph.
In my report I did recommend at least 3 cm of wet new snow on the trail before travelling in order to make for respectable skiing coming down. If it does snow on the trail this week at least 3 cm, it would be worthy of skiing up Redearth into the high country as conditions were superb further up.
Currently I would recommend skiing up to the Baker Lake Skoki region as the snow on Friday was great from the parking lot all the way up into the Red Deer Valley. With all the snow up there along with the firm base under the new snow you can tour where ever you point your skis without sinking more than a few cms.
|
