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CASCADE RIVER - beyond Stoney Creek afternoon/ night ski

Report Submitted by DEMOCRATIZE AB
(trip) Date: Thursday Dec 01, 2022

Submitted: Thursday Dec 01, 2022 at 23:51

Participants:

Mr. Real Democracy on 205cm BC59 skis

Discussion:

The trail in the afternoon was trackset again to the Cascade Bridge. The Minnewanka Road is in good condition. Ski poles hit the pavement in some areas. No worry of scratching skis, at least at night.

The old Sundre Banff Road or Cascade Trail is in good to very good condition to the bridge. I hit one rock coming out at night.

Beyond the CR6 campground the snowmobile tracked trail was buried with recent snow. I think one of Santa's little Elves must have broken the trail for nearly 2 km beyond the bridge because it was a very narrow ski trail, in some cases as wide as a fat ski. I widened up the trail then I broke trail to beyond Stoney Creek. Skiing was generally very good. It is time for Parks Canada to trackset this section of trail.

At the Warden Cabin there was about 20 cm of new snow. The snow has a rain crust at the bottom of the recent storm cycle on top of the snowmobile trail, prograding to dry snow on top. There is roughly a total of 48cm of snow at the cabin.

Beyond the end of the snowmobile trail, trail breaking is difficult. I was breaking through the crust which was not good. It will take a major Pineapple Express weather system to settle down the base. Potentially the travel beyond the Bison Fence will be difficult until March if normal weather occurs until then.

Skiing out at night the snow varied in speed from somewhat slow to moderately fast. At the Warden Cabin the temperature was -18c at about 6:30 pm


Total distance: 31.00 Km




3 comment(s) posted

Comments:




2022-12-02 at 20:12 - comment by DEMOCRATIZE AB

Howdy MaSid,

The wind was not blowing from the east yesterday. I noticed that driving home at night when the smoke stake pollution from the numerous cement plants east of Canmore was blowing in a SE direction, away from Banff or Canmore.

I had noticed the burning of pine beetle signs previously on the Trans Canada Hwy on my other ski trips. Those signs were giving misinformation or lying to the public. There was a construction company burning big spruce logs in 2 big steel burn bins. I think they may have been involved with a powerline construction company. I was disgusted by what I saw burning as they could have cut up the wood for fire wood to heat homes rather than wasting logs that looked as big as a foot and a half across or more. I am sure a lot of people would have appreciated that wood to heat their homes. They could have simply cut up the wood and leave it off the side of the highway for people to pick up. It would have disappeared fast as some people need the fire wood to reduce home heating costs. But anti-environmental corporations will be anti-environmental corporations and just pollute when it is unnecessary because of lack of intelligence and smart UCP government regulation along with the fact that they just don't care about the air we have to breathe. This is what a red neck corporation looks like.

I was going to give the company "a public relations lesson" on my ski trip out yesterday if I saw them burn again but I did not see any burning yesterday- the first time in weeks.

As a nature loving G.O.D. (Great Out Doors) type of guy who spends the majority of life on the land, I have learned to have major respect for the Sacred Environmental Gifts of Life.

The Sacred Environmental Gifts of Life include the sacred air we breathe into our lungs skiing, the sacred water we drink to hydrate us skiing, the sacred soil that grows our food to feed us out skiing and the sacred sun that energizes all life on earth and my buns on a cold day of skiing.

Unnecessary wasteful polluting corporations like the one burning big spruce on the side of the Trans Canada Highway do not respect our Sacred Environmental Gifts of life and they need to be educated or legislated to do so if we want our environment to last for the future generations.

Their disrespectful corporate actions prematurely help melt the glaciers and snowpacks faster that provide us water to drink along with irrigation for crops that feed Albertans while putting particulate in the air that reduces solar power hitting the ground which costs us all more money in heating as your passive solar windows in your home collect less energy when pollution particulate reduces the sacred sun's light intensity. Smoke from fires can travel around the planet 2 times, creating harm across the planet which also reduces sun intensity for crops growing. Reducing a farmers sun adds to food inflation and decreases food output. This is not what environmental or economic sustainability looks like and anti-environmental wasteful burning needs to stop.


Air particulate pollution also adds to cooler growing temperatures. On my farm, the sun is often blocked by about 20% due to air pollution which slows crops down and makes them more susceptible to early frosts. The only good thing about an early frost is I get out skiing sooner.





2022-12-02 at 13:32 - comment by MaSid

Noticed “smoke in the area” signs beside the Hwy yesterday east of Canmore for pine beetle control. Typically wouldn’t get blown in from there. Temperature inversion will do it too, compress stuff into the valleys.





2022-12-02 at 13:16 - comment by DEMOCRATIZE AB

I forgot to mention the bad air quality skiing up the hill before the Cascade Bridge. I was getting hints of burning plastic and other materials that I could not recognize. The " air layered" particulate was very hard on the lungs in some places. It looked like I was skiing into the Arctic haze when I first started skiing. At times I was wondering if I was smelling the pollution fall out of the burning of buildings and soldiers in Ukraine. It was bad to suck up that particulate while working hard to ski up the hill. After I got over the hill the air cleaned up, I could not see and Artic Haze effect anymore, but I was noticing snow that did not look pure white. It had to have some significant particulate in it to give an off white color.

As I was skiing out to moon light, the air was fairly heavy with smoke particulate in some sections going down the hill again. My guess was the sell out former Greenpeace Federal Environment Minister is still burning forest in Banff. We pay carbon taxes so the government can burn about 1.5% of Banff per year while the government pollutes the atmosphere. Such immoral hypocrisy.

The 1.5% figure is based on conversations with park officials about 15 years ago. They told me that was their burn target and I don't know if that has changed. It is absurd to wastefully burn forest and pollute the air with hundreds of chemicals, including releasing past radioactive fallout from past activities. I have noticed very significant increases in air pollution in Banff over the last couple of decades as fall out from all over the world falls on me while skiing. But most of the fallout is local. The Banff Canmore valley is becoming increasingly polluted with the growing population and industry. The snow is not as pure as it once was to ski on.



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