Keith on a multi-day trip in in Manning Park:
“Ryan and myself did the Heather Trail and came down Granger Creek: 42 km. On Tuesday we went up Mt. Frosty (22 km).
The trail access gate was locked about 5km down from the trailhead – a guy in his pick-up truck drove through the ditch and we quickly seized the ride to the trailhead. The trail: snow. Lots of snow. Weather: super hot. Views: Incredible. About 60% of the trail was covered. We regularly lost the trail and uncovered it all the time. Some bushwhacking and playing in the snow. Ryan is great with GPS and maps so we determined where the trail went and did well overall.
We camped at Kicking Horse and Granger Creek. Nicomen Lake was cold and refreshing and there were lots of wildflowers; anytime the snow melted they were ready to shoot up!
On Monday we had a quick easy cruise into Manning Park. We hitched a ride up to the car and there was snow for beer next to the car. This was a happy moment. We picked some morel mushrooms – tough to find but we got a few.
Canada Day was Mt Frosty ski day. We got off at 8:30 and headed up in beautiful clear skies. The hike/ski took us round trip almost 9 hours. The snow was good and we managed to patch a few pieces of snow together in the meadows and skied almost all the way to Frosty Creek Cabin. The last 4 km saw large hail stones and cold rainfall, but by the time we got the car it stopped and we could start to see blue sky again.
A wicked Canada Day; up on the top of Mt Frosty at 2400 m. We saw termites, 1 bear, a chipmunk (we called him Chippy) AND a squirrel too!”
