West Bragg Ski Trails:Telephone Loop Trail skiing on 30-Nov-2024

We were greeted with a -9C temperature in the West Bragg Creek parking lot, about 10C warmer than in Calgary. Our group of 3 set off at the east Telephone Loop trailhead at about 0930 in partly cloudy skies. The trail was well roller-packed so the many footprints and tire tracks were shallow. Some rocks were showing on the climbs (which are south-facing) on the east half of the loop, but they were easily avoided. I saw only 2 rocks (easily avoidable) on the east half descents. The tire tracks ended at the Disconnect junction, and the footprints ended at the top of the Loop at the Long-Distance junction. The west half of the Loop had a bit deeper snowpack with a well-defined skier-trackset. We had lunch #1 at the first spot where the sun managed to make it through the trees to the ground. We reached the end of the Loop (at the Moose Loop junction) in pretty good time so we decided to take in Moose Loop as well. Lunch #2 was at the Moose Loop / Mountain View West junction. We saw only a few skiers on Moose Loop, but it was a lot more than on Telephone Loop where we only saw one. We continued down Moose Loop and Mountain Road back to the cars at about 1330. About 20km, 480m elevation gain.

Carl and Damian on the west leg of Telephone Loop

Carl and Damian on Moose Loop

Participants: Damian, Mike (Trip Coordinator and Reporter), Carl