Manning Park got 40 cm of fresh snow on Friday and Saturday and we started with a foot of snow from the Manning Park lodge. The road up to Gibson Pass was not groomed very well and we devided to better start from the lodge one kilometer from the trail head instead of driving further up the road.
The trail is wide and relativly easy to follow although there is just one marker every kilometer. We were the first ones on the trail after the snowfall so we had to break trail from the beginning.
The further we got up the mountain the deeper the snow got. After about 5km it was almost up to our knees and breaking the trail was getting more and more difficult. I went first on skis and my girfriend followed on snowshoes. When we got to the Frosty Mountain junction we were already pretty exausted and noticed that we were getting slower and slower. The next two kilometers took us about 90 minutes and when we got to the 7km marker we were running out of time and energy and decided to turn back.
I would recommend to do this one with a bigger group and to take turns breaking the trail. Doing it with two people would work if you started really early and had time to do some longer breaks.
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