Start to Mt. Burke | Snowshoeing & Winter Hiking | Kananaskis Outdoors Forum

On a terrifically windy day drove to Cataract Creek day use area, which is also a snowmobile staging area. Not the best day for snowshoeing or for checking out the trail, but at least it gave an indication of what to expect come summer. The road to Cataract  Creek campground is OK: the bridge over Salter/Plateau Creek intact.  The trail along the north bank of Plateau Creek seems untouched. Possibly more stones  and less meadow and the odd tree down on the flats. As we turned into the narrows of Salter Creek it was a different story. The stones have been thoroughly churned, the banks eroded a little more and there are downed trees. Most trees can be avoided by keeping to one side or other of the creekbed. One large tree right across the bed had to be circumvented via the left bank. If the branches were  lopped, then it’s likely one could shimmy over the top, or crawl underneath—not sure how deep the snow was at this point. The trail through trees just before the turnoff to Burke was blocked by a matte of debris. Have to take a closer look at this sans snow to see if there if one can get around it. Getting into the creekbed at this point was difficult because of the steeply eroded  bank, so we turned back. Summer users will possibly have to use the scoured-out channel of the creekbed instead.