Shadow Lake Lodge Trail skiing on 22-Dec-2023

Most memorable ski trips involve great skiing, camaraderie etc. This was not one of those trips.

Sure, we gelled together fine: all had the same complaint: no wax would work on the wet snow and the ruts from the ACC snowmobile were not user friendly. The limited snow was flattened (sort of) but with the temperature hovering around freezing. none of us could find a workable wax.

We all started with skins, but since its a long plod (~13km 1-way) to Shadow Lake Lodge with skins, reverted to a warm wax. Nothing worked very well, but by skiing the edge of the 1.5 metre "road" we found some traction. After nearly 3 hours of this we reached the first campground at about 7km. Quick math showed that the lodge was too far today. We had lunch and returned to the car in about 1hr 45mins.

Ivan and Leslie enjoy lunch at the first campground on Red Earth Creek

Ivan and Leslie prepare for the long downhill on Red Earth Creek Trail

I did not find even this descent too pleasant. My skis were too wide to fit in the ruts, but narrow enough that snow-ploughing over the choppy snow wasn't much fun either. Enough whining. As Ivan commented: its good to get the season's one lousy trip over with. Thanks to participants Leslie and Ivan for joining me C, S & P David on a rather wasted day. There were a few rain drops when we left the Red Earth Creek Parking lot about 2.15pm, but my car thermometer showed +9c at Calgary city limits in the sunshine about 3.30pm. Maybe an urban hike would have been more appropriate.

Stats from Ivan's GPS: 13.6km, +320m in 5 hrs. "Normally", my return time to the lodge would be about 7 hrs for the 27km ski.