July 14, 2023 - Manning Park
Stats: 21.4 km / 835m gain / 2272m high / 5:40 hours MT / 10:00am - 4:30pm
If you want to do a hike to see wildflowers, this is the one. It's a classic premier hike. So I was surprised when six out of the eight of us had never done it before. Conditions could not have been better. The flowers were at their peak!
The Heather Meadows parking lot is already 1920m high so why the 835m elevation gain? Because the first three km were a gradual downhill to Buckhorn backcountry campsite. Then from there the uphill began, leading to the vast colorful meadows with their mellow dips & swells. Then before climbing onto the ridge, we also had to do a drop before the final ascent.
At the picnic table we took a break. The old outhouse has been removed. Their are new ones just a bit farther down the trail by the campsite.
Destination in sight. To the right is First Bros. summit. Oddly, there is no Second Bros. Mt. Instead the neighbouring peak is Three Bros. Mt and then next to that is the Fourth Bros. Mt.
Mt. Frosty to the right -- southeast.
Silverdaisy Mt (1950m) -- southwest.
The Hozameens - south.
Tiger Lilies, red Indian Paintbrush, Daisies & white Indian Paintbrush.
A viewpoint along the trail of the ridge leading to the summit.
A hop & a skip off of the trail is the tarn.
This was the steepest part of the hike; the slope getting us up onto the ridge.
View from the summit -- south.
1) a grouse 2) Heather
Group shot: Narasimhan MK (first time with our club), David G (or Scott if there's more than one David in the group), Jaco N, Peter F, Patrick R, Dave Walton, Iraj F, Maureen S & I
A pleasant surprise! I had no idea my buddy, Dave Walton would be waiting at the summit for us! I hadn't seen him since Covid started. Together, we had completed all the hikes in the "103 Hikes in Southwest BC" book. I couldn't have done it without him. He now lives in Keremeos.
Dave stuck with us on our return journey.
1) Penstemon 2) Daisies
This batch of lupines filled the air with perfume.
As we climbed those last three seemly unending uphill kilometres back up to the first parking lot in the hottest part of the day, I lured the group on with promises of ice-cold drinks waiting in my car. The post-hike tailgate parties on a sweaty day, have quickly become a routine. Dave W got the seat of honour as our guest.
Maureen's carload was then going to drive straight home but that was not how it went. She ended up with a flat tire! Thankfully three men quickly fixed it for her, but she couldn't drive more than 80km all the way home. As for our carload, we had dinner on the nice sunny patio at the lodge.Thankfully it wasn't too busy there.
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