Goat Creek and a bit of Middle Spray

Trip date: Friday Feb 09, 2024

Submitted by Sara M

Particpants:


Discussion:

I started from the Goat Creek trailhead in somewhat miserable conditions - it was only -9 but the wind in the parking lot was bitterly cold and the lack of sunshine didn't help. Luckily, things got better as soon as I started skiing and got out of the wind. The ungroomed start of the trail has very thin snow over ice, but the surface snow is nice. At the start of the grooming, the snow layer was still pretty thin. No issues for the skis, but sometimes my poles skittered on thin spots. The snow got better and deeper as I headed downhill towards Banff.

I was planning to ski to the Banff trailhead and back, but I got distracted when I got to the Middle Spray junction. There were tracks heading up the road... I decided to give it a go. The skier tracks ended fairly quickly but the crust was supportive so I kept going. This part of the Spray road was pretty was pretty bushy when I skied through it a couple years ago, and it was worse this time with the low snow levels.