Three Brothers Mountain: and Cherry Picking Too
We are obsessed with cherries. So obsessed that driving 400km away and five hours each way just to pick cherries doesn’t seem like a ridiculous idea to us. I think there is something exotic for us about cherries. I remember hearing stories from my grandmother about how she used to climb the family cherry tree in their backyard in Cologne, Germany, pre WWII days. She would sit for hours on a wide branch munching on the unlimited supply of cherries, spitting the pits into the Nazi neighbour’s yard… It always sounded like a fairy tale, cherries were almost unreal. Growing up in Israel we sure enjoyed many different types of fruit, but…
Punch Bowl Loop: A Jungle in Manning Park
The plan was to sleep on the summit of Snass Mtn, half way around the Punch Bowl Loop. But things don’t always go according to the plan. Both on trips and in general, in life. We need to adapt our expectations to a constantly changing reality. Otherwise, we are doomed to be unhappy and unsatisfied. At least, that’s what I tell myself. We hiked up the Whatcom Trail through a beautiful forest, covered with bright green moss and stringy Old Man Beard, as thick as a sheep’s coat ready for shearing. Maya wasn’t feeling so well, so we took lots of breaks and a nap or two. Higher on the…
Frosty Mountain: Free Light Show by Mother Nature
We haven’t done trips in Manning Park for maybe four years, and I had set my eyes on Frosty Mountain for a while. I think I especially liked the name, but this weekend it was definitely not frosty there, or anywhere close to it. As usual we packed late on Friday night as we were invited for dinner at friends, went to sleep late and didn’t get an early start on Saturday. The drive was quite long, nearly three hours, and by the time we started hiking it was almost noon. The trail starts at Lightning Lake Day Use area and immediately starts to climb. The first part is in…
Silverdaisy Mtn: Winter’s Silver Lining
We headed to Manning Park for a ski touring day trip to Silverdaisy Mountain. This was a BCMC trip headed by Jos van der Burg, a dutch from Chilliwack who I had heard good things about. I picked up my three passengers (all girls) early in the morning, and we met the rest of the group in Chilliwack. I had felt the strong winds on the road already, every now and then a gust hit the car and tried to push it off the road. From there it was another hour to the trail head at Cayuse Flats, where we started skinning up the snowy Cayoose Creek FSR. A few…
Norske Peak: Going For Glory on Norske
A few weeks ago I read a trip report by Robin Tivy on Bivouac describing a two day trip to Manning Park and an ascent of an obscure peak – Nordheim. This was possibly the first recorded ski ascent of Nordheim, and it was mentioned that “if you really want glory”, Norske was up for grabs. I’m not one to usually look for glory, but it seemed like a good enough excuse for a trip into a relatively untraveled area. I emailed Piotr Forysinski who was eager, and Phillip Zielke came along too. Phillip had arrived to Vancouver in December (from Germany) and had only skied several times before this…
