We had some fine back-country skiing (both AT and tele) back of the Lake Louise ski area.
It is a long slog from Fish Creek up to the Temple Lodge area, but it gets nicer past that.

We had a lunch break at the Halfway Hut and then proceeded into the Hidden Lake valley. There was no sign at all of previous traffic.

Before long we had climbed the first bench and were staring at a vast expanse of virgin snow.

Unfortunately the clouds were probably thickest while we were making our runs off the lower east slopes of Richardson Ridge.

Some had difficulty seeing the terrain well. Some skied two runs others three before we had to head back. The coordinator was trying to find a "Philip's Secret Slope" on the return but didn't do a very good job of it and so we had some challenging tree skiing (in excellent powder) getting back to our up track. Once back down the forecasted clearing happened and it was gorgeous for the quick and easy return to the car.

It was around -10 C to start and did not warm up much. In the meadows near Halfway Hut we could detect the problem that is mentioned in the avalanche bulletins. There was clearly about 20 of light snow on top of a 5-10 cm layer that was strong. But under that was quite a bit of unconsolidated snow that could facilitate a major avalanche. We skied on fairy gradual slopes and stayed generaly on top of the windpack.

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Many thanks to Arnold, Kevin, and Stan for joining me, Carl (C/S).

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