People here ask me if I would like to stay in Charleston, and my answer is always the same. It's a gorgeous city - I love the food, the art, the history - but it doesn't have mountains. There's something about wild space to get lost in, a horizon that draws you upward, that Charleston just doesn't have.
Before I even came home for Thanksgiving, I booked a cabin at
Manning Park and figured I had enough mountain-loving friends in the area to fill it. Sure enough, the cabin was completely full with a random collection of people from work, college, and significant others. It became a condition of me going back to Charleston that I got to stay in the PNW long enough to have some quality mountain time.
I didn't bring a camera, so the pictures here are shamelessly pilfered from Katelin's facebook.
Manning park is one of my favorite spots in BC. There's so much to do there!
- Snowshoe trails
- XC (Skate and classic)
- Downhill (Great bunny hill!)
- Ice rink
- Pool, hot tub, dry and wet saunas
- Lodge (With a big fireplace!)
- Bar (Also with a big fireplace!)
The long and short of it is that we had a great weekend. The snow conditions were great the first evening (people went ice skating and hot tubbing).
It rained overnight, and conditions were crappy for xc skiing Saturday morning. When we came in around noon we were already tired, so we spent the afternoon in the spa. And doing burpees in the snow. Cait made chili in the evening and we had hot cocoa with schnapps and played games.
The next morning, the snow came back... almost too much of it! The groomers hadn't kept up overnight, so the XC ski paths were loose. We decided to snowshoe instead. So. Much. Beautiful. Loose. Powder.
As we were driving out of Hope, this was our parting shot of Cascades.
