Moraine Lake after a few km's on Red Earth Creek Trail
Trip date: Saturday Apr 16, 2022
Submitted by Normand
Particpants:
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!