Our incoming to Island Lake snowcat skiing is on Sunday of President’s Weekend, which is also Family Weekend in Canada. While both Castle and Fernie distribute skier traffic quite well, Fernie is very tight for lodging on the holiday weekend. Since cheap lodging would have been all the way east to Crowsnest Pass, we decided to pay up for Saturday night on the mountain at Lizard Creek Lodge. View from our room:
This was definitely the right call after getting to bed at 3AM the previous night after the late flight. After a quick hot tub, we had elk Bolognese and bison short ribs after this salad and appetizer in the hotel dining room.
On Sunday Great Gray North weather returned. We started on Bear Ridge, then Bow in Lizard Bowl.
Lower down where runs merge:
Groomers like these were in great shape, and that’s mostly what we skied in order to conserve energy for the upcoming cat skiing.
We moved on to Cedar Bowl, starting with the first groomer Tuck Out.
Cedar Bowl has low density as it takes the Haul Back T-bar and two chairs to return. During that process we passed by Fernie’s snow plot.
In the background are the short but steep chutes dropping into Lizard Bowl off the Reverse Traverse from Currie Bowl. We skied to the Bear chair via SE facing moguls in Sun Up as a test and were pleased to find winter snow. The late January rain layer was well buried. We only encountered frozen granular on a couple of high traffic runs, Kangaroo off the Haul Back T-bar, and Heartland approaching the White Pass chair.
Returning to Cedar Bowl, here’s the view across to Snake Ridge, one of Craig Morris’ favorite haunts from 10-30 years ago.
Skiing on Cedar Centre:
Lower down on Cedar Center we still have the run mostly to ourselves.
After that second Cedar Bowl circuit we took a lunch break, then moved to the “New Side” via Timber chair. Highline had the best snow off White Pass.
Knot Chutes are at right.
Down Right had similar soft packed powder and nearly as empty slopes as Cedar Bowl. Liz called it a day and returned to Cedar Lodge while I took one more lap on the New Side. The clouds had lifted enough to open the Polar Peak chair.
However the steep lines looker’s right of the lift were closed. We heard there had been a slide down to the rain layer during the previous week, which is consistent with that type of terrain being off limits while we were at Island Lake.
So I passed under the lift and started out the Reverse Traverse, with no fixed plan what to ski. The first slope I reached was Big Dipper, and it looked mostly smooth so that’s what I skied. I was delighted to find it was windsift similar to what I had skied at Castle on Saturday. I stopped for a belated picture halfway down.
That was definitely a high note to end my day of 19,100 vertical.
This was definitely the right call after getting to bed at 3AM the previous night after the late flight. After a quick hot tub, we had elk Bolognese and bison short ribs after this salad and appetizer in the hotel dining room.
On Sunday Great Gray North weather returned. We started on Bear Ridge, then Bow in Lizard Bowl.
Lower down where runs merge:
Groomers like these were in great shape, and that’s mostly what we skied in order to conserve energy for the upcoming cat skiing.
We moved on to Cedar Bowl, starting with the first groomer Tuck Out.
Cedar Bowl has low density as it takes the Haul Back T-bar and two chairs to return. During that process we passed by Fernie’s snow plot.
In the background are the short but steep chutes dropping into Lizard Bowl off the Reverse Traverse from Currie Bowl. We skied to the Bear chair via SE facing moguls in Sun Up as a test and were pleased to find winter snow. The late January rain layer was well buried. We only encountered frozen granular on a couple of high traffic runs, Kangaroo off the Haul Back T-bar, and Heartland approaching the White Pass chair.
Returning to Cedar Bowl, here’s the view across to Snake Ridge, one of Craig Morris’ favorite haunts from 10-30 years ago.
Skiing on Cedar Centre:
Lower down on Cedar Center we still have the run mostly to ourselves.
After that second Cedar Bowl circuit we took a lunch break, then moved to the “New Side” via Timber chair. Highline had the best snow off White Pass.
Knot Chutes are at right.
Down Right had similar soft packed powder and nearly as empty slopes as Cedar Bowl. Liz called it a day and returned to Cedar Lodge while I took one more lap on the New Side. The clouds had lifted enough to open the Polar Peak chair.
However the steep lines looker’s right of the lift were closed. We heard there had been a slide down to the rain layer during the previous week, which is consistent with that type of terrain being off limits while we were at Island Lake.
So I passed under the lift and started out the Reverse Traverse, with no fixed plan what to ski. The first slope I reached was Big Dipper, and it looked mostly smooth so that’s what I skied. I was delighted to find it was windsift similar to what I had skied at Castle on Saturday. I stopped for a belated picture halfway down.
That was definitely a high note to end my day of 19,100 vertical.
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