Great Divide Girl and I headed back to Kananaskis with snowshoeing in mind. We stopped at Kananaskis Village to query about the new pass that's meant to finance track setting on the various ski trails. It's $50 annual, available online only, or $10 per day. The passes were not available yet, and not required as track setting has not started. How this is going to be monitored and enforced remains to be seen.
We headed up the Smith Dorrien aiming for the Mount Shark trailhead and the wide "trail" to Watridge Lake. The trail had been prepped by a snowmobile pulling a packing roller. We encountered this coming back our way later on and noticed on our return that packing was being done on all the Mount Shark ski loops.
Snowshoes were not really warranted and others had hiked in, but we wanted to re-awaken our snowshoe muscles which we soon discovered had atrophied over the summer. It's a 5.5 km trudge to the Lake over mostly flat ground with a few ups and downs thrown in. It took us an hour and a half to the lake which hasn't been frozen all that long by the looks of things.
Watridge Lake
South Summit, Cone Mountain
Mount Morrison
After a snack we headed off on the trail to Karst Spring. This initially features a lot of narrow board paths over what is probably bog in the summer. Narrow boards and snowshoes aren't much fun and we walked beside them, back and forth. At the lake outlet creek bridge, we had no choice but to side step.
Heading into the woods, the Karst Spring creek was open. Green moss made a nice contrast
The final steep hill to the spring would be tricky in icy conditions but we managed fine and soon made it up to the bench and rails beside the spring. The water comes out at the base of a cliff. Daffern refers to this as the largest karst spring in North America.
Heading back, we really noticed our snowshoe muscles, or lack thereof, and it felt like a long haul indeed, though enhanced by some mountain views.
Mount Nestor
Mount Engadine
Now that we are primed, we'll have to see where more snow might lead us.
