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Tour de Elk Passes
Report Submitted by Septuagenarians
(trip) Date: Monday Dec 18, 2023
Submitted: Monday Dec 18, 2023 at 18:15
Participants:
Two of us.
Discussion:
Initially we were just going to check out the couch construction site on West Elk Pass but conditions were so good that we expanded the day into a Tour de Elk Passes. Temperature was -4 to -2 with clouds. There has been negligible new snow since the tracksetting. We used 62 mm steel edged LT skis with fishscales. These were the perfect skis for the varied conditions we encountered.
The tour is shown on the attached GPS track. Fox Creek was getting quite packed with no new snow. As a result, the skier trackset is almost packed totally flat. This polished surface was not icy, but combined with the uneven terrain, we can recommend this trail only for intermediate or advanced skiers. The alternate, the Elk Pass hydroline hump looked quite worn. Elk Pass beyond Fox Creek has excellent hard formed trackset with even grooming in the middle for snowplowing if you wish. Blueberry is the same, but the middle is a bit uneven from the weekend snowplowing pushing snow into small ridges in the middle. The West Elk pass is delightful all the way to the couch but is not quite solid enough for skinny skis yet. Thank you Ma Sid! We continued into BC where conditions were a bit more challenging as one approaches the BC hydroline. The southeast meadow trail crosses many wet boggy dips. The previous skier set track had soaked up water into the track in spots and we splashed fresh snow onto the trail to continue. We made it to the BC hydroline without catching any ice on our skis or poles.
After the wallowing through the last part of the southeast meadow we appreciated the solid hard packed trail beneath the BC hydroline. There had been so many skiers on it that it was all smoothed out like Fox Creek but the snow was a bit softer and we had good traction to ski straight up to the Elk Pass.
Hydroline had perfect tracksetting and was hard and fast. There was some minimal footprint damage to the grooming in the middle, but if you stay in the track you avoid that and go FAST down the tracks. Our GPS showed 43 kph but it felt faster than that.
Overall it was a great day, but we will wait for some more snow before skiing Fox creek again. We saw about two dozen other skiers enjoying the day.
Total distance: 20.00 Km
 Tour de Elk Passes
 BC Hydroline
 No shortage of good snow in BC
3 comment(s) posted
Comments:
2023-12-18 at 18:38 - comment by MaSid
Interesting. Didn’t notice any moisture in the tracks travelling in either direction on Friday. Thanks for the additional track packing and maintenance!
2023-12-19 at 08:19 - comment by Septuagenarians
MaSid,
There had been some traffic on your trail over the weekend, including a skinny ski or two, and this had probably compacted the trail into some moisture. As for the wallowing, this was not on your trail which was perfect, but on an old trail that branched off to the east to connect to the road at the earliest possible location.
2023-12-19 at 08:42 - comment by MaSid
That makes sense. I stayed away from the more easterly old track when it veered from the normal route. For other meadow options, east elk pass is likely not in shape yet, especially the narrow treed/drainage bit in the middle. The Patterson meadows might be good, but yet to put a track in there. Maybe soon though. That old track may have also ventured into the lower blueberry meadows, but haven’t checked that out yet either. All I want for Christmas is more snow! Might be some minor amounts from the elk pass cloud over the next week or so, but nothing too significant.
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