March 6-7,2010,Manning Park tours
3/6/10
1957
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Manning Park was one of the first places that I went as a X-C skier back in the early 80's. Last weekend I returned to ski two of the routes after an absence of 25 years. My son,(Gabe), Nick BC and myself climbed up the Fat Dog Creek trail to the alpine meadows on a blue bird Saturday. Much of the way we were in the shade of the valleys, but it was bright and hot on the ridge.(Photo 1) So hot that I sat shirtless while we eat lunch. We enjoyed a little meadow skipping (Photo 2) before taking a short cut through the forest back to the trail. Even though it was still warm in the late afternoon sun, the snow was starting to set up in the shade as we traveled the 6 kilometers or so back to the car.
My brother-in-law lives in a primitive cabin 30 minutes east of Manning park. He provided the use of another cabin and cooked us a feast on his propane stove. We returned to the park under gray clouds and filtered sunlight the next morning. We used the summer road to the Cascade Lookout in search of views. We had the choice of untouched snow or the trail laid by other skiers and snow shoers. One could have just walked up if they wanted, which is what my son did for the last 1/2 mile. (Photo3) The mountain behind us in the picture is Mt.Frosty. (I wrote a TR about our camping experience there last October.) We took advantage of a few short cuts between switchbacks on the return trip.
We covered around 30 kilometers over the weekend while touring. Nothing too exciting but still a nice revisit to an old haunt. More photos can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/telemon.bob/ManningParkWeekendMarch672010#
My brother-in-law lives in a primitive cabin 30 minutes east of Manning park. He provided the use of another cabin and cooked us a feast on his propane stove. We returned to the park under gray clouds and filtered sunlight the next morning. We used the summer road to the Cascade Lookout in search of views. We had the choice of untouched snow or the trail laid by other skiers and snow shoers. One could have just walked up if they wanted, which is what my son did for the last 1/2 mile. (Photo3) The mountain behind us in the picture is Mt.Frosty. (I wrote a TR about our camping experience there last October.) We took advantage of a few short cuts between switchbacks on the return trip.
We covered around 30 kilometers over the weekend while touring. Nothing too exciting but still a nice revisit to an old haunt. More photos can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/telemon.bob/ManningParkWeekendMarch672010#
I have always wanted to go backcountry in Manning but never got around to it.
How is the snow cover this year? Is it low like the North Shore and Coquihalla?
How is the snow cover this year? Is it low like the North Shore and Coquihalla?
author=runningclouds link=topic=15922.msg66596#msg66596 date=1268356376]
I have always wanted to go backcountry in Manning but never got around to it.
How is the snow cover this year? Is it low like the North Shore and Coquihalla?
I assume that you looked at the link for additional pictures. We didn't have issues with snow coverage on the routes that we took, but it should be obvious from the photos that lower, especially south-facing, slopes are bare. We had complemented climbing Mt.Frosty, but were deterred by reports of bush whacking problems at the base. We also considered the Poland Lake trip, but we were not aware at the time that we could travel through the ski hill with a one-time pass. There are other options that you can find by googling Manning Park ski routes. Perhaps March will see a better coverage in Manning and elsewhere. It has happened before.
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