Lake Louise - December 9, 2011

Warm-up run of the day was Whitehorn I, then down to Ridge Run; Whitehorn I was hard-packed, but smooth - making for some nice turns. Further down, there's strong evidence of wind over the past week. There's a hard wind-crust with some choppy snow on Ridge Run. The trail crew has done a great job on the cat-track at the bottom of the-back bowls,  with a cat-track now covering most of the creek. (Check out the Lake Louise Lowdown blog for more info, but the snow-farming has worked... this seems to be the earliest I can remember this being covered.)

 

For run #2, I took a chance on Paradise bowl, which had snow blowing in from the front-side of the mountain creating a 1-2cm skiff of snow that softened things up, particularly on skiers right at the top. These were some of the best turns of the morning.* Larch main was in great shape with the groomers taking any wind-crust out of the picture. The snow was hard-packed, but grippy - almost like a Nakiska run. Keep in mind it's still early season though, there are certainly a few thin spots when the terrain drops away and the groomers shave off some of the snow.

 

Early afternoon, the snow safety team opened Brown shirt, but not North Cornice. There were some very nice turns to be had with one caveat: There has been a relatively recent avalanche in the brown-shirt area, so depending on where you pick your line, you might be skiing untracked snow on top of avalanche debris.**

 

Here's some tips on where to ride at the Lake, at least until the flakes start to fall again:

1) Stick to groomed or hard-packed runs... this is much easier to ride than wind-crust.

2) If the temperature rises, try some runs in the sun as the snow may soften up.

 

The conditions will be similar over a good portion of the Rockies; including back-country - where wind-slabs and basal facets are currently the two major problems in the snowpack. (Check out avalanche.ca for more info.)

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