Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/112497
daytripper: A Slope Unto Oneself Finally, a ski hill where one can wipe out with dignity >> Ian MacNeill F or the past 24 hours, all I���ve been able to think about is Graduation Hill, so-called because if one can ski to its base without crashing, you���re deemed to have ���graduated��� as a cross-country skier. Here���s the thing. I���ve been a carvaholic for 50 years and fear few slopes when bolted to my boards. But these skinny little crosscountry doodads are giving me fits. The challenge, of course, is that they���re not attached at the heel, only at the toe, making the process of stopping an entirely new experience ��� counterintuitive, even, for an old downhiller like me. I���m finding even the shortest slopes lead to slapstick crashes worthy of a YouTube highlight reel. And now, with each twist of the trail leading deeper into the ice-palace forest of Manning Park, where I���m tucked away with my little family for the weekend, Graduation Hill is just that much closer. I���ve only myself to blame. ���Bring on the hard stuff,��� I���d crowed to our Nordic ski instructor, the appropriately (but coincidentally) named Sarah Manning. But that was yesterday, sprawled before a roaring log fire in Manning Park Lodge. Now that she���s granted my wish, I���m trying to remember ��� as I push and poke amid pine and hemlock toward what I now think of as my impending doom ��� if an impish smile didn���t flit across her face when I issued that particular challenge. Trepidation aside, I still can���t help but be astonished by our surroundings: a fantastical world of snow-laden trees reminiscent of dreams and fairy tales where, occasionally, the trail breaks out into bright sunshine and startling vistas of Frosty Mountain and its sister peaks looming over Lightning Lake. ���Who knew,��� I���d blurted out loud to the park lodge���s GM Barry Wilks a few weeks ago. He���d just finished describing how this winter wonderland gets 10 metres of just-outof-the-bottle champagne powder annually and a yearly visitor count ��� barely 43,000 ��� that makes it one of the most underutilized Alan Majchrowicz p24-27-34_Daytrip.indd 25 winter playgrounds in the province (Whistler Blackcomb sees two million plus). The latter was particularly puzzling considering the park is a mere 200 clicks from the cocktail clinking crowds of Metro Vancouver. ���Yeah,��� Wilks had chuckled. ���A lot of people think of Manning as nothing more than a highway pit stop.��� Guilty as charged. But that all changed when I followed up on said facts with a ski buddy of mine, who broke down and confessed to downhill skiing at Manning last winter on ���great snow��� and pretty much having the place to himself. ���Powder up to the knees and fresh lines to carve in unblemished snow all day long,��� he added with just a hint of malice, knowing how much it hurt to THE CANADIAN ALPINE and B.C. Mountaineering clubs both offer guided tours of Manning; (above) the park���s Three Brothers area. hear. Obviously, there are limits even to ski friendships. The thing is, at pretty much every ski hill I���ve ever been to, any fresh snowfall barely lasts a few hours before the local powder hounds tear it to shreds. Typically, by 11 a.m. I���m peering at a sea of gouged lines and feeling like the guy who���s just come back from vacation to find his basement flooded. Noting the anguish on my face, my buddy, of course, pitched in with something else he neglected to share last ski season: ���We even went back the next day and still got fresh lines.��� I booked a room the next day. WESTWORLD >> W I N T E R 2 0 1 2 25 12-10-26 7:33 AM