Invermere/Radium places to ride and snow conditions

[Stickyfingers]

Spent lots of time in the invermere and radium area but not for sledding. Heading up there this weekend with my newly acclaimed trail staging area map and hoping for the best. Looks like kain creek, Forster, rockypoint, paradise mine, brewer, McDonald, doctor creek all have staging areas hoping someone could point me in the right direction as to where to ride. Would like to spend more time sledding here if the areas decent as have a cabin to stay in in invermere. Any info would be appreciated otherwise we might just be commuting to golden.

 

[Taminator]

Ummmm. I wouldn't necessarily use your trail map alone. Some of these areas aren't accessible year round and aren't actually riding areas. I would avoid Kane creek, McDonald Creek and Doctor. The low coverage, you will not get into some of these, at all…and there's nothing to do if you don't make it in. Brewer isn't great yet from what I hear, and unless you know that area it might not be your best bet, there are high avy danger areas on the way in depending on how far you go. Paradise Mine is a super small area used mainly by Toby Creek adventures for tours. A cool area and a short ride, but not a 'riding area' so to speak. Peeps we know have been in Rocky Point and got in ok but had a ton of rocks still not covered. We've had snow since then, but the access is sketchy into there and with the dump this weekend I personally wouldn't recommend rocky unless all the slide paths have slid…there's about 8 if I recall right. Some on the road in and some on the switchback trail in. You may or may not make it past the slide paths, if it just slid you'll have a ton of avy debris and might need to wait for a snowfall to get over it. Forster is the only actual 'riding area' with staging and groomed trail if you're lucky. lol
Don't want to be a negative Nelly, but some of these areas just aren't riding areas if you're new to the area and don't know you're way around or know the snow conditions, if it's slid etc. Ask around, check the avy bulletins and weather forecasts this weekend is high danger for Sat/Sun and windy.

 

[pano-dude]

sounds like tourism radium is marketing some of the nasty spots..... I foresee issues, Some of these areas are not for inexperienced riders. IMO they should only be marketing managed areas.

wind warning of up to 120km/hr at 2500m! yikes

Ummmm. I wouldn't necessarily use your trail map alone. Some of these areas aren't accessible year round and aren't actually riding areas. I would avoid Kane creek, McDonald Creek and Doctor. The low coverage, you will not get into some of these, at all…and there's nothing to do if you don't make it in. Brewer isn't great yet from what I hear, and unless you know that area it might not be your best bet, there are high avy danger areas on the way in depending on how far you go. Paradise Mine is a super small area used mainly by Toby Creek adventures for tours. A cool area and a short ride, but not a 'riding area' so to speak. Peeps we know have been in Rocky Point and got in ok but had a ton of rocks still not covered. We've had snow since then, but the access is sketchy into there and with the dump this weekend I personally wouldn't recommend rocky unless all the slide paths have slid…there's about 8 if I recall right. Some on the road in and some on the switchback trail in. You may or may not make it past the slide paths, if it just slid you'll have a ton of avy debris and might need to wait for a snowfall to get over it. Forster is the only actual 'riding area' with staging and groomed trail if you're lucky. lol
Don't want to be a negative Nelly, but some of these areas just aren't riding areas if you're new to the area and don't know you're way around or know the snow conditions, if it's slid etc. Ask around, check the avy bulletins and weather forecasts this weekend is high danger for Sat/Sun and windy.

 

[OnlyPolaris]

I agree with the above. I have riden forster, brewer, paradise mine and the bugaboos/rocky point. Like said above paradise mine is a small area with a good trail, parking lot and cabin. not really a whole lot of play area. Forester is a nice area with a parking lot, trail and cabin. really fun area with good terrain. Both brewer and rocky point and harder areas to get into. Even more so with the snow level is low. Parking is kind of just on the sides of the logging roads where you can find pullouts. Both areas have nothing marked, so if you have never been there before it can be pretty tricky to find your way to the alpine. make sure you get a backroad map and study it pretty good. Thats about the only way your going to know where to go.

 

[Taminator]

Actually it's the BC Gov't site that has all the riding and trail information out there not Tourism Radium at all. I have yet to see Radium push anything but Forster. The Recreation Trails has had the same information for at least 10 years on the snowmobile trails. If you read it, it all sounds like good riding areas…if you didn't know better.

 

[pano-dude]

also be aware of the logging trucks. heavy activity in the area 7 days a week.