From the day use area, Zosia and I skied to the edge of Lower Kananaskis Lake and soon turned southward to follow the eastern shoreline.  As far as I could tell, the lake was completely frozen on this day with a healthy cover of snow insulating the ice from generally mild temperatures.  While breaking trail was not a problem, the snow was just deep enough to effectively hamper our glide.  Early in the tour, we stumbled onto some old snowshoe tracks which were a little easier to ski on since the packed snow was more supportive.  We followed the snowshoe tracks into an inlet all the way to the very southern limit of the lake where there was a small icefall beside a striking chunk of rock.

After poking around the icefall for a bit, Zosia and I backtracked to the main body of the lake and turned westward to traverse over a little island as marked on the map.  From there, we continued northward along the western shoreline but eventually veered into the middle of the lake where many ice fishers had set up shop.  Throughout the day, there were occasional strong wind gusts blowing across the lake, but strangely enough, we never had to ski for long into the teeth of the wind no matter which direction we were headed.  In fact, we seemingly had the wind at our backs for the better part of our ski tour.  As such, we probably could have extended our trip after passing the ice fishers, but feeling less than one hundred percent, we opted to simply return to the day use area and call it a day.

	Zosia skis out onto frozen Lower Kananaskis Lake with Mount Indefatigable in the background.
	Zosia skis by some chunks of ice sticking out of the snow.

 

Zosia heads for the south end of Lower Kananaskis Lake.

 

	Sonny approaches a striking chunk of rock at the very southern limit of the lake. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	Zosia climbs above a small icefall guarding the south end of Lower Kananaskis Lake.  The water in this ice actually comes from the outlet of Upper Kananaskis Lake Main Dam.
	Although the small island at centre is marked as such on maps, the water level in this lake is often low enough to allow people to walk there without getting their feet wet.
	Zosia descends back to the lake after traversing the small island.
	Zosia checks out another outcrop of ice near the lakeshore.
	Sonny heads toward some ice fishers building a wind break in the middle of the lake. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak

 

Zosia heads back to the day use parking area (left of centre) with the Elk Range stretched across the horizon.

 

N.

Total Distance:  5.3 kilometres Round-Trip Time:  2 hours 19 minutes Cumulative Elevation Gain:  16 metres GPX Data