I'm here for the final 2 of my 9 days snowcat skiing in 2 weeks. I was a bit worried given the warmer than normal temperatures and that there had been little recent snow. Fortunately Fernie got about 6 inches 2 days ago and the reports from the incoming cat skiers who had skied lift served at Fernie were positive. Skiing here was decent in 2003 and 2004 when it was not so good at the resort.

Island Lake looked huge when I was first here in 1997, but at 7,500 acres it's quite a bit smaller than Chatter Creek or Mustang. There are quite a few tracks near the pickup points and some other places we skied that were tracked before the 6 inches new. But Island Lake is the only snowcat operator that owns its own land and thus can build roads and cut trees to optimize skiing.

It was quite warm by Canadian standards, maybe low 30'sF, and the new snow was denser than the cat areas to the north. This was probably helpful in covering old tracks and there was no wind effect so it skied every bit as well in the more open untracked areas.

Weather started out with the usual Canadian overcast:


There were sunny breaks as the afternoon wore on:


Finally by 3PM the cloud lifted above the alpine. So we got our last 2 runs up there from the highest drop at 7,200 feet.



I was reminded from my previous visits how impressive the Island Lake alpine is from both skiing and scenery perspectives. The other cat group is unloading at the bottom of this picture:


15,600 today despite starting after 10AM with transceiver drills. Most of the runs were in the 1,500 vert range except the last which was about 2,500.

Most long time skiers can take a trip down memory lane with the comprehensive boot and ski exhibit in Island Lake's recreation room.

In the pic above at left are the black metal Head 360's, my first skis bought as surplus rentals from Mt. Baldy. The light green ski next to the 360's has the Marker Explodomat heel binding that was on the 360's. At right is the Rossignol SM with Salomon 727, the exact setup of the first of 4 Rossi GS skis I owned from 1979-1999.


Here's part of the boot exhibit. The low leather Lange at right was the boot I got at the same time as the Head 360's. The orange Lange at left was a popular race boot of the early 1980's. I had the light green version of it with a softer shell, but had the race liner put in it to take up some ankle volume.