We went for an overnight snowshoeing trip in the Landslide lake area, which is west of Nordegg, not far from the eastern border of Banff National Park on Highway 11. There was to be 8 of us but we had some last minute cancellations and so 5 of us went up. The first day was a bit cloudy, and the snow was minimal near the highway and on some of the exposed ridges on the way up.

I was the one with the big yellow thing on my back. I figured that going down hill with snowshoes was too inefficient so I brought my son’s sled. Many times on the steep up-sections I envisioned myself falling backwards and sliding down backwards headfirst but that didn’t materialize. Plus the sled made a great insulated pad for sitting on when cooking later that night.

Here is first picture of the pass leading to Landslide Lake. It is quite high, one of the higher passes that is easily hiked in the Rockies. It is around 8200 feet or so. The snow this year was very crusty with several ice layers likely from all the freezing rain we had. It made it much easier going than in past years.

Here we are on top of that pass. Not much of a view because of the clouds. It was better the next day.

This is the reason I brought the sled. Not one of the safer things I’ve done but sure fun. It was actually more of a time saver on the second pass on the way out.

Here’s the first view of Landslide lake on Day 1. We eventually made it down to the trees and camped out.

Camping that night in tents with a fire. It got down to –20 that night, those in the 4 season tent reported being warm except for their noses. I have to say I should have rented a 4 season tent instead of using my Tarn 3. The mesh walls and ceiling certainly vented well but did little to keep any warmth around. I forgot how much fun it was to be cold for much of the night. Needless to say the next morning, we got off to a quick start leaving the campsite at about 10:45 AM. We needed a lot of hot drinks.

Much better weather on day 2, clear as a bell. We were hoping to get back to Highway 11, via Bridge Creek which to me looked quite doable from the map. If you are looking at a map it is the pass that is directly east of Landslide lake at its entry creek side. It would be about 10 km day if everything worked out ok. This pass is lower than the one we did on day 1.

Well that was the pass, I was not going up that in snowshoes. I swear it didn’t look that cliffy on the map. Oh well a different route would be needed. We settled on going out via a different pass that leads to 2 O’Clock creek and then down to highway 11. This spot comes out right at Kootenay plains and the two O’clock creek campground for those that know the area.

This is getting to the 2 O’clock creek pass. Many in the group did not enjoy this section, it was steep. This pass is higher than the day 1 pass.

This is the top of pass. We were a bit behind schedule but I was looking forward to using my sled again.

This is looking back at the pass. I managed to not take any steps by using my sled to almost the bottom of the picture. There was a lot of foot breaking going on. I would imagine that after some freezing rain or freeze thaw cycles I would have been crazy to do it but there was enough powder to slow me down.

Now its about 3 hours of snowshoeing at a quick pace to the Highway and then back to the vehicles. This area is a very nice spot to snowshoe. I’ve done 4 snowshoeing trips now to this area, and you never see a soul, the snow tends to be a bit of everything from icy crust, to no snow to deep powder in the trees. We did carry peeps, shovels and probes but I would not characterize this region as dangerous avalanche terrain, it just doesn’t get the volume of snow. Almost all of the snow is choked into the trees and very little up high on the ridges and passes. It is amazing what being east of the continental divide will do for snow pack. Well that was the trip, according to the GPS it was 20 km total.

Pat Kelly

Email: weatherbyp9@yahoo.ca