Peter Lougheed Tracks of Opportunity Track skiing on 12-Mar-2025

Participants: Bill, Barbara, Damian, Pam, Gordon, Jenny

It was snowing lightly on the drive out and there was a decent amount of fresh snow once we got past the Nakiska turn off. We started from the PLPP Info Centre on blue wax and -6C to take advantage of some fresh grooming. That was the right plan and we stayed on recently groomed until the Packers turn-off where we decided to leave the grooming and head uphill through a good 10 cm of fresh snow. Lunch break timed perfectly for noon at the Packers-Pocaterra junction. There were some recent tracks on old grooming from the junction downhill to the Lynx trail where we could tell the snow was getting softer as the sun poked out. This 2 km section was the most challenging for all of us since the fresh, ungroomed and warming snow was becoming very sticky. This necessitated many stops to clear snow off the bottom of the skis and some good balance challenges to deal with the occasional sudden stop. Luckily this was a short section and once we hit the bottom of Lynx, we were back on fresh grooming and conditions were still very good, especially in the shaded areas. We landed back at the Info Centre and some did a quick peek across the road to check the status of the trails around William Watson area. The SWIX thermometer suggested we were getting close to the red wax time and so it was time to call it a day. There was much discussion about the generally poor winter snow conditions this season and agreed that some more snow for March would be welcome. Thanks all for joining us on a much needed day in the mountains! Thanks also to Ingrid and friend for breaking some trail before us.