Trail Conditions for Calgarians

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Trail Conditions for Calgarians
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flag leftypumpkin
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Posted: Nov 21, 2021 at 15:13 Quote
92: we rode two laps of Side Trax this morning on our fatbikes. The Ings' road and the bottom of the Husky road were fairly icy but transitioned to just packed snow the higher you climbed. Side Trax was in good shape generally with a good snow pack all the way down. The two spicy bits at the bottom had lots of traction and there were even a few bare loamy bits down low to enjoy.
flag 13en
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Posted: Nov 22, 2021 at 8:52 Quote
was the road good enough to climb on skinnys?
flag leftypumpkin
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Posted: Nov 23, 2021 at 7:17 Quote
13en wrote:
was the road good enough to climb on skinnys?

You could probably get away with it, bottom half definitely had ice in the packed tire tracks though so you'd have to try to ride the packed snow instead.
flag 13en
O+
Posted: Nov 23, 2021 at 9:03 Quote
yeah i did
husky road was def better than moose road

husky trails had more snow
family guy was summer conditions with a few slushy puddles
flag leftypumpkin
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Posted: Dec 5, 2021 at 17:53 Quote
powderface short loop was in good condition - packed and grippy snow all the way around. We looked at the trail conditions heading up to the ridge from where the link starts and there was foot traffic, we decided to skip it though.

Also rode a pistolero lap from the winter gate on hwy 66 after we finished at powderface - elbow valley was in good condition, the road was fine with packed vehicle tracks to ride in, between the road and loamzilla was packed but a pretty narrow line that you had to ride otherwise you would get bucked off. Definitely some tracks down loamzilla, only foot traffic before us up to the clearing on the way to the start of pistolero, then no tracks (except for ours now). Pistolero was mostly sugary snow so pretty slippery in spots. Lots of deadfall, but most of it was small and easy to clear so only one tree down that was easy to ride around.
flag leftypumpkin
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Posted: Dec 9, 2021 at 8:20 Quote
Pneuma up to 7-27 was in great fatbiking condition (a few of the steeper corners were a little slippy so lots of effort expended with little forward motion). Trail gnomes were out cleaning up the fallen trees on the segment above Sulfur, didn't look like any trees were down below Sulfur.

At 7-27 we switched over to the Moose road - tough slugging, lumpy dually tracks with wind sifted snow starting to fill them in by the steep part near where pneuma and race of spades cross. Should get better once the Peridae guys run a plow up the road.

Race of Spades was also in good fatbiking condition - there looked like a single track down covered in 2" of snow when we started out and the trail gnomes had also done a bunch of tree work on the way down. Sugary snow up top, kind of slippery underneath transitioning to a better snow pack down low. Some drifting in open areas (especially the mid trail climb, we pushed up the old steeper trail) but otherwise we were able to pack the line back in.
flag leftypumpkin
O+
Posted: Dec 18, 2021 at 19:03 Quote
Rode Flo & Side Trax today on Husky. Climb up was fine, probably 1" on the packed and bladed road up. Rip down Flo was a little dodgy - there wasn't much traction in the new snow pack and you were left to the desires of the underlying packed groove that you couldn't see. The downhill snow definitely didn't pack down as we rode it. The climb up to the start of Side Trax was 1/2 hike-a-bike and 1/2 ridable in 50-100' chunks. Now that there is a bit of a packed line you could probably ride the whole thing except maybe the push between the road and the trees. Side Trax had the same unpackable snow as Flo and definitely had a side-slope feel to it.

TLDR - all rideable but snow wasn't going to pack for the life of us.
flag Sharkon
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Posted: Dec 21, 2021 at 6:18 Quote
Lefty, after a month now, it would appear you are the sole bike on Moose! Kudos to you for hanging in there! Happy holidays my friend!
flag leftypumpkin
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Posted: Jan 2, 2022 at 17:33 Quote
Sunday WBC update - wow, what a push-fest.

The only trail that was any good was Snowshoe east of Telephone Trail and apparently bikes aren't allowed there anymore. We rode Snowshoe, telephone, disconnect, middle long distance, reconnect, up to the first open switchback on Merlin, then back down and out on Braggin Rights. I'd say we pushed 1/3 of disconnect, probably 1/2 of long distance from disconnect to reconnect, 3/4 of reconnect, then decided to turn around after pushing the first couple of corners on Merlin, maybe 1/4 of Braggin Rights down to the bottom of Long Distance and 3/4 of the rest of Braggin Rights to the parking lot (it was severely post-holed).

Lots of wind drift snow from last night's wind, quite a bit of it with a wind crust that wouldn't support foot traffic.

And the parking lot - we got there at 10:00am and it wasn't bad, but by the time we left at 1pm it was just like Christmas at the mall, with cars parked out the road all the way to the cattle guard.
flag kenny99
Posted: Jan 10, 2022 at 9:28 Quote
leftypumpkin wrote:
Sunday WBC update - wow, what a push-fest.

The only trail that was any good was Snowshoe east of Telephone Trail and apparently bikes aren't allowed there anymore. We rode Snowshoe, telephone, disconnect, middle long distance, reconnect, up to the first open switchback on Merlin, then back down and out on Braggin Rights. I'd say we pushed 1/3 of disconnect, probably 1/2 of long distance from disconnect to reconnect, 3/4 of reconnect, then decided to turn around after pushing the first couple of corners on Merlin, maybe 1/4 of Braggin Rights down to the bottom of Long Distance and 3/4 of the rest of Braggin Rights to the parking lot (it was severely post-holed).

Lots of wind drift snow from last night's wind, quite a bit of it with a wind crust that wouldn't support foot traffic.

And the parking lot - we got there at 10:00am and it wasn't bad, but by the time we left at 1pm it was just like Christmas at the mall, with cars parked out the road all the way to the cattle guard.

Haven't been around for awhile. Any updates from this or elsehwere? What's good nowadays?
flag leftypumpkin
O+
Posted: Jan 10, 2022 at 15:43 Quote
We rode ranger, strange brew, snowy owl and across to the shell road/telephone loop up to braggin rights, then down braggin rights and whitetail to the parking lot. They were all well packed when we rode them at ~lunch time but there was a post on Trailforks that there was a groove down the trail by day's end (the sweepers on strange brew had a tire groove when we came ripping down but that was the only place we found anything but a packed line 8-12" wide).

One group we came across at the Braggin Rights/Telephone intersection said that Long Distance was not very well packed.
flag kenny99
Posted: Jan 12, 2022 at 14:38 Quote
leftypumpkin wrote:
We rode ranger, strange brew, snowy owl and across to the shell road/telephone loop up to braggin rights, then down braggin rights and whitetail to the parking lot. They were all well packed when we rode them at ~lunch time but there was a post on Trailforks that there was a groove down the trail by day's end (the sweepers on strange brew had a tire groove when we came ripping down but that was the only place we found anything but a packed line 8-12" wide).

One group we came across at the Braggin Rights/Telephone intersection said that Long Distance was not very well packed.

Thanks!! Eastlands has been pretty good and well packed.

Any intel on Prairie View? Can you get around the lake?
flag lazyname
Posted: Jan 12, 2022 at 14:39 Quote
leftypumpkin wrote:
Rode Flo & Side Trax today on Caledonian Midstream Corp. .
flag leftypumpkin
O+
Posted: Jan 13, 2022 at 6:43 Quote
kenny99 wrote:
leftypumpkin wrote:
We rode ranger, strange brew, snowy owl and across to the shell road/telephone loop up to braggin rights, then down braggin rights and whitetail to the parking lot. They were all well packed when we rode them at ~lunch time but there was a post on Trailforks that there was a groove down the trail by day's end (the sweepers on strange brew had a tire groove when we came ripping down but that was the only place we found anything but a packed line 8-12" wide).

One group we came across at the Braggin Rights/Telephone intersection said that Long Distance was not very well packed.

Thanks!! Eastlands has been pretty good and well packed.

Any intel on Prairie View? Can you get around the lake?

We were just talking about it last night whether it would be rideable for the weekend, no real info except that there were guys riding it last weekend.

Fish Creek intel from last night - everything was in fantastic shape (packed grippy snow on most of the trails we rode) except Cliffhanger, it was grippy and slippery at the same time! Found if you could keep your tires rolling grip seemed fine, but if you stopped rolling your tires and feet definitely wanted to slide to the downhill side! (TLDR - sketchy as hell unless you're confident enough to just ride it!)
flag leftypumpkin
O+
Posted: Jan 13, 2022 at 6:44 Quote
lazyname wrote:
leftypumpkin wrote:
Rode Flo & Side Trax today on Caledonian Midstream Corp. .

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does itSmile .

Been meaning to look them up to see who they are but can never remember the name when I get back to a computer.

 


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