My expectations were fairly low, as Lake Louise had only 25 inches in January through the 28th and 84 inches for the whole season to that date, plus weather predictions were for very cold. I missed the 4 inches or so in the past couple days, and now much of the weekend snow had not been skied because it was -35C on Monday, even cold for Patrick. So it turned out much better than expected.
Temps were probably between 5-10F, but with no wind and enough clothing it wasn't a problem. We (Adam, Ben Solish and I) had mountain hosts. After a couple of warmups (with some bumps) on Larch, the cloud lifted off the top of the mountain so we headed up the Summit platter. Host Mike took us on the long traverse to BrownShirt, which was almost completely untracked. We decided to go back up and ski Whitehorn before lunch as it looked like the cloud was lowering. Just Whitehorn 1 was open, and you needed to ski the steep part right down the middle as there were rocks on the sides. But past the crux it opened up in some fresh tracks on skers left.
After a very nice lunch in the Bear Cafe, we were a bit less energetic in the afternoon. But with our host Bobby we did ski the Ptarmigan trees. This was powder over moguls, but with just a few inches of very dry powder, mostly moguls. Last run was an open filed of snow near the front side of the Summit Platter, Playground, that fed into a natural halfpipe and eventually in Men's Downhill. This area on far skier's right of the front side is practically deserted so the snow was soft and forgiving.
The big news up here on Jan. 31 was a major accident of 5 big rigs, resulting in 3 fatalities. The TransCanada highway was closed between lake Louise and Golden al day until 9PM. So our normally 1 hour drive became a 3 hour detour via Radium.
Temps were probably between 5-10F, but with no wind and enough clothing it wasn't a problem. We (Adam, Ben Solish and I) had mountain hosts. After a couple of warmups (with some bumps) on Larch, the cloud lifted off the top of the mountain so we headed up the Summit platter. Host Mike took us on the long traverse to BrownShirt, which was almost completely untracked. We decided to go back up and ski Whitehorn before lunch as it looked like the cloud was lowering. Just Whitehorn 1 was open, and you needed to ski the steep part right down the middle as there were rocks on the sides. But past the crux it opened up in some fresh tracks on skers left.
After a very nice lunch in the Bear Cafe, we were a bit less energetic in the afternoon. But with our host Bobby we did ski the Ptarmigan trees. This was powder over moguls, but with just a few inches of very dry powder, mostly moguls. Last run was an open filed of snow near the front side of the Summit Platter, Playground, that fed into a natural halfpipe and eventually in Men's Downhill. This area on far skier's right of the front side is practically deserted so the snow was soft and forgiving.
The big news up here on Jan. 31 was a major accident of 5 big rigs, resulting in 3 fatalities. The TransCanada highway was closed between lake Louise and Golden al day until 9PM. So our normally 1 hour drive became a 3 hour detour via Radium.