Skoki and Lake O’hara Systems at Wilsons
Setting up for Your trip to Skoki or Lake O’hara
People come from all over the world to enjoy skiing out to Skoki Lodge and to Lake O’hara here in beautiful Lake Louise. It is an awesome experience and people of all walks of life can do the trip. It is important to be prepared and to have clear expections. Those expectations will define the gear you choose, the time your trip will take and how you will enjoy your expedition.
Some things we insist on for your Trip
1) Get your gear the night before
2) Go to the Lake Louise camp ground trail and ski 1 lap with your gear. Experience stepping in and out of your binding, putting skins on and off as well as getting a feel for your gear
3) pack carefully
4) get a nice early start and take your time while enjoying the scenery and experience. “believe it or not you are having fun right now” Said by many guides.
Make sure you check your skoki trip checklist very carefully. The nice people at the lodge have made a very thorough info page to help you.
At Wilson’s we are working very carefully to ensure that we have the best ski gear for your trip. When it comes to picking gear there are several systems that people like to use and it is up to you which one you pick.
Skoki System
What 80% of people use when going to Skoki Lodge.
Salomon Outpath 64 skis with Outpath boots, adjustable Leki Poles and full length skins (franken skins we like to call them) Franken skins are made with Pomoca Climb 2.0 plush. Featuring the perfect combination of grip and glide for your trip. The tips are from G3, tails from black diamond and we even feature the worlds best skins bag from Onsite. Yes indeed after 36 years we even get excited about the skins bag. This system works well for folks who are reasonably comfortable Nordic skiing.
Alpine ski touring
about 15% of people use this system.
If you are a confident skier, you don’t mind some extra weight on the way out, are OK with extra $30 per day and look forward to letting em rip down from deception pass, then by all means book Alpine ski touring gear. Definitely pick up the day before, even in the afternoon, we’d love to see you.
Wayback ski’s
Marker Kingpin or F10 tour bindings
Pomoca 2.0 skins
K2 Mindbender or Salomon Lab shift boots.
Snowshoeing to skoki
If you have been out to skoki in the summer and enjoyed the hike you can have a similar experience with a shortcut across redoubt lake by using snowshoes. The good news is they are light, predictable, reliable and you will not be cold as you will generate lots of heat. They will climb any hills really nicely as well, all our snowshoes feature climbing bars.The only drawback is that you won’t get that exhilarating descent down from deception pass to the lodge on ski’s. If that isn’t for you the walk down on snowshoes is very safe and easy.
Our friend and local hero Joe Nexhipi used to work at the ski hill and after work he enjoyed cross country skiing out to skoki, spending the night with his friends and then skiing back in the morning. That system worked very nicely for Joe as it is light and fast. The only trouble is that when you go to climb up deception pass they can be tricky and without metal edges that descent down to skoki can be very challenging. This system’s for the experienced and capable cross country skier.
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All in all once you’re on the right gear for you, your trip will be just that much more enjoyable.
~Bill
**Photo Credits to: Banff Lake Louise Tourism/ Paula Zizka & sterling-adventures.co.uk **