Kananaskis Lakes Ski Trails: Elk Pass and beyond Track skiing on 3-Ap

Participants: Bill, Gordon, Jenny

At this time of year, you never know when that last day on the skis for the season will happen. With the recent snowfall, we were keen to get out before the warming begins and I think our timing was great. We hit the road shortly after 8 am and realized we were apparently not the only people trying to take advantage of good conditions – snow that is and not road because the drive out was quite icy. Most must have been resort bound as not many followed us at the Kananaskis exit. Fortunately, the plows had been (and were) out in K-country and we had better road conditions from that point forward.

After checking the grooming report in the morning, we decided on Boulton Campground trail head as our start location. Most recent grooming appeared to be on the lower trails and we wanted to do a different route from our last trip. We started out on fresh grooming on Moraine and Fox Creek trails; however, our usual mantra of “follow the grooming” didn’t get us too far today. Grooming on the remainder of the route ranged from two to five days old and there was 5 to 25 cm fresh snow depending on location. From the Elk Pass junction, the trail was skier trackset until we ran into the two ladies who were ahead of us on their way back. Sadly for us, they had not continued to the Pass and we had to break trail to the Blueberry junction. We stopped here for lunch in a mix of sun and light flurries and managed to take just long enough break to have three fit looking skiers catch up to us. Good timing! We jokingly pre-thanked them for breaking trail to the Pass (and beyond) and fortunately they obliged. Hence, we followed the 3-skier trackset to the Pass and beyond to the WhiskeyJack junction. Here we had a short break and discussion of trail direction. There were no fresh tracks on WhiskeyJack (apart from a bobcat we think) and Gord was keen for some sweet skinny ski turns in serious “pow”. So we did that.

With the fresh snow and mostly lack of recent machine grooming, skiing was enjoyable but slower than normal, although no one was in a hurry. No issues with old icy tracks but lower down the sun crust was not buried very deep. Temperatures stayed low enough that blue/violet wax mostly did the trick but when the sun was out, it was clear it was starting to pack a punch. Last day for the season or not, it was lovely to get out and thanks to Gord for letting Bill and Jenny naturalist geek out along the way.

Gordon, Jenny Happy Skiers

Almost covered Track approaching Elk Pass

Mt Fox from Blueberry Junction

Nobody but bobcat for the last day or so.

Lunch at the base of Blueberry