Crowfoot Pass via Glades Off-Trail skiing on 18-Mar-2021

We had a lovely day.

It turned out to be easy to find the best starting point. There were six Parks vehicles parked and a dozen or so folks getting ready to ski over to Crowfoot Glades. We were skinned and ready to go a little after 10. There were many tracks climbing through the glades, at time pretty scraped and close to where one might have used ski crampons. Within an hour or so we were up to the top of the trees and past the Parks people. It clouded over a bit as we traversed over towards the pass.

But soon it cleared up a grand vistas opened up.

It was quite windy and there is really no protection so we had an abbreviated lunch a little below the pass. And then climbed the last rise up to Crowfoot Pass.

The descent off the pass was disappointing. Most of us had skied the area in wonderful snow several time. We found a few (very few) small patched of nice wind sift powder but most of the top few pitches was pretty wind packed.

A little lower down we did find a few patches of nice snow in the trees.

But there wasn't enough there to justify a skin up for another run. We followed other skiers tracks back towards Bow Lake. A few hundred meters before the lake we dropped down to the Bow River.

We donned skins there again and returned up the river, across the south end of Bow Lake and back to the cars. We were back before 3:00. Distance about 11 km, ascent 500 m. Not a big tour or great turns but is was a fine day nevertheless.

Many thanks to participants: Kim,Manfred,Mike,Shirley,Inge,David,Evan,Fiona, and Jim for joining me, Carl (C/S).