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2024-02-18 at 10:55 - comment by haywire
When I ran the early days of ski grooming we used to keep our equipment at the high point of your side trip. That section North to Iron Creek had the best snow in WBC. And you are correct. The locals in Elk Valley and Highlands snowshoe that area frequently
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Report Submitted by SteveR
(trip) Date: Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Submitted: Thursday Feb 15, 2024 at 20:46
Participants:
Just me
Discussion:
This afternoon, I skied Elbow-Iron Springs, with a few side trips along the way. As noted by JFR, conditions were excellent throughout. I'll let the pictures tell the rest...
 Elbow south had been recently packed (as had Iron Springs south), so I continued on down to Sugar Mama. No trampling, yet...
 The largely forgotten Iron Creek trail was superb! Where the trail bends to the left in the photo- I turned right, off of the groomed trail onto an old road that I followed south for 1.6 km.
 The old road meanders up, down and around, over a highpoint and down towards an escarpment above the Elbow River. It had been snowshoed prior to the big snowfall almost 2 weeks ago, so travel was fairly easy on 50 mm LT skis. This would make a nice groomed trail, in fact about 5 years ago it did see a surprise grooming in the spring.
 At the south end of my route, I encountered a well travelled snowshoe trail coming in from the east, a branch of which led to a viewpoint of sorts overlooking the Elbow River.
 Passing by an impressive grove of aspens.
 My route. Note that this is not the official Iron Horse winter trail, which crosses Iron Creek near the same spot. My guess is that the ongoing, well travelled snowshoe trail originates in Elk Valley Estates. Elevation gain to the highpoint is about 30m, which is then lost descending gradually to the south.
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