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CASCADE RIVER TO WELL BEYOND ELK TRAP- Tuesday ski

Report Submitted by DEMOCRATIZE AB
(trip) Date: Wednesday Dec 08, 2021

Submitted: Wednesday Dec 08, 2021

Participants:

A CHAMPION TO LEGALIZE YOUR RIGHT TO INTRODUCE AND VOTE ON GOVERNMENT BILLS



Discussion:

Casacade River to Stoney Creek is very good to excellent trackset skiing. Just a little debris where fallen trees were cut on the trail. The snow base is fantastic and reasonably firm for this time of year. Skate skiing is a bit rough with hiker and other divots or small ruts on the skating lane. Moderately fast snow.

I broke trail from Stoney Creek Bridge to roughly 2km from Cuthead Warden Cabin. Excellent snow base and excellent skiing with a good crust with up to 8 cm of new silky soft cold snow near Stoney. Generally easy trail breaking with on average about ankle deep ski penetration. The base gets more bullet proof further up the valley while ski penetration is about 6cn. I broke trail until it was too dark to continue without the headlamp.

When I got back to Stoney Warden Cabin, the temperature was -8C, the same as it was in the afternoon. After leaving the cabin at around 9:30pm the temperature increased to -7C with a little wind that brought the winchill to around -13c or so. A few light snow flakes were falling.







2 comment(s) posted

Comments:



2021-12-08 - comment by Chuck

Well done… looking forward to using your track some day.
How were those three little creek crossings before the Elk Trap?
By the way, what looked liked hiker tracks were actually ungulate (Elk or Moose) tracks.





2021-12-08 - comment by DEMOCRATIZE AB

Howdy Chuck,

I was able to ski across all the creeks beyond Stoney Creek. I did not have to take off my skis anywhere, including the Stoney Creek bridge. I packed around some of the creek shorelines. Parks Canada is foolishly allowing a couple of creeks to run down the road. I wish Parks Canada would get off their high horses and fix these erosion problem sights.

I was thinking it would take several more nights of good cold before Stoney Creek could be crossed on skis. It looked do-able in one spot but I would have had to scrape the slush off my skis which I hate doing.

Somewhere around Elk Trap last night I saw a freshly dug up elk leg buried about 1.5 feet in the snow. I was surprised I did not see it on the way in. It was likely buried on the ski in. There were a few scavengers around and a lot of rabbits using my ski trail.

I did see a lot of ungulate tracks on the Cascade trail along with some hiker tracks. It was an ungulate highway for the most part on the Minnewanka Road. I was kind of surprised how chewed up it got as I did not notice that when I skated down the road on my trip in. Luckily the tracks were not on the ski tracksets coming out.





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