THE STREETS OF CALGARY- WEASELHEAD/ SOUTH GLEMORE PARK
Trip date: Saturday Dec 25, 2021
Submitted by DEMOCRATIZE AB
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Discussion:
I decided to basically ski out my city door and down along Southland Drive to the west City limit thinking that the air quality would be good because everyone was opening presents. Instead the air quality choked my skiing lungs along Southland Drive because a lot of people were burning Christmas wrappings with old school wood fireplaces or stoves that are not EPA rated. Santa does not like going down chimneys that don't have a clean burning EPA rated fire place at the bottom. They have far more toxins in them from poor combustion.
At the city limit I skied north through the dog park to South Glenmore Park. Only a few unleashed dogs barked at me as I wailed through the park on fast snow. The air quality greatly improved at the dog park and I was able to pick up my ski speed and get sweating a whole lot.
South Glenmore Park has some great fun skiing on multi use trails. The snow was fairly fast. There is no tracksetting in South Glenmore Park yet. Generally very good to excellent skiing. I eventually ended up on the old trim track trail past the Atco Pipeline right of way. It was a blast to ski this section of trail. It is quite technical with lots of curves and the snow was fairly fast. I used to ski the trail daily years ago until too many people started to use the trail, making it rather unsafe to ski. Today I only came across 1 person in 4 hours of skiing on the trails.
The only problem with skiing in west South Glenmore Park is the City plows the bike path to "nowhere". It dead ends in the middle of nowhere which is really stupid. The city should not plow the bike path beyond the Enmax Electrical facility in order to make for better skiing. The plowing ruins fantastic cross country ski terrain. In a couple of places one must ski across the plowed bike path unfortunately, on the upper trails. I only use my rock skis in South Glenmore Park as a result of the plowing.
I broke some trail on the east side of Tsuut'ina Trail in the Weasel Head area. I used to ski this trail a lot years ago but it is now getting a little grown over. I skied to the Elbow River and did some minor bush wack skiing along the river for a ways until I hit a good trail. From this trail I ended up on the old river bed from pre 2013 flood days. This made for excellent skiing and it was beautiful to see the sun set through the snow covered cotton woods and aspen trees. What a treat to ski this long old river bed. It brought back a lot of memories of fly fishing this old section of the river and losing a lot of monster trout on 8lb test leader. Today there are a number of small beaver dams along the old river bed that create an ice base and with the new snow on top it is great silky skiing. This is a must to ski as the sun goes down through the trees. As far as I am concerned, the South Glenmore Park/ Weasel Head area offers some of the best non trackset cross country skiing in Calgary. There are plenty of trails which are not interrupted by cleared or plowed bike paths and there are trails for beginners and advance skiers. Its a little bit country and a little bit city.
Once the old river bed got close to the new 2013 flood river channel, I skied up the bank to the trail along the Elbow River to Weasel Head Bridge. I did not want to risk falling through the river ice. Along this trail you can see old fox hole trenches when the military used to use the area for military exercises. From Weasel Head bridge I took the old Atco Pipeline right of way back to South Glenmore Park. I was super surprised to see that it was snowmobile packed before the last storm event. This made for great fast skiing. I skied back home in the dark with the assistance of street lighting.
With the snow pack in the City not being as deep as the mountain snow pack, I found there was less bounce in the snow to cushion my beat up old body while skiing. By the time I got home I felt like I just skied 50k when I probably only skied about 10k. Thankfully I had some of my Italian friends powerful beyond organic nothing added natural red wine made from my beyond organic chemical and spray free grapes to ease the skiing pains in my body quickly. A rare muscle relaxing treat that very few people have the opportunity to enjoy after a great afternoon of skiing. Unfortunate I only got one bottle this year from the wine making boys. If you make wine and want chemical free grapes to make chemical free wine, check out the Gardens at Spences Bridge. It is buried under snow now though.