Spring Break at Manning

 It is spring break 2023 and it's the first time since 2020 that I am seeing an overwhelming amount of posts on my social feeds of tropical locations, palm trees and beaches. Hallelujah for international travel again!

For our family though, we haven't done a sunny all-inclusive since a nameless 18 month old had the projectile vomiting incident of 2015. It was recorded here and it was horrifying and we shall never speak of it again. So even though we have had more successful flights since then, we kept it local and went to Manning Park instead. Despite it not being Cancun or Maui, we had snow much fun (sorry, bad pun)

We rented a premium chalet again this year (in case you're interested, you need to book a year in advance to the day that you want). There's a bedroom for my parents, a bunk for my sister and her friend and a loft that has 2 twin beds for the kids and a pull-out for Simon and me. The kids loved having their own space in the little loft.

We lucked out and had two amazing ski days. The first day was bluebird sunshine with just a bit of new snow. Perfect spring skiing conditions. My dad got his senior lift ticket and did great on the slopes.

The second ski day was unexpected. We weren't even planning on skiing again but it snowed over 30cm the night before and when there's a powder alert, you can't miss out on that. 

They only groomed 2 runs so the majority of the mountain was insane deep powder. The kids kept getting stuck and some spots they were buried in waist deep. No joke.

The kids had their skis pointed down and not able to move with so much powder. Hard to ski when you can't see your legs under all that snow. Little Bro had so many powder spills that he decided it was 'too much powder' and sat out for a few runs til lunch. 

Never would I have thought there would be such a thing as too much powder and it definitely wasn't too much for Simon and me. So fun cutting deep powder lines on steep black diamond runs. This is what I think heli-boarding must be like.

Other than skiing and boarding, we also hiked Lightening Lakes. It's still on our to-do list to come back here in the summer and put our SUPs in the water. You can see in the pictures just how much snow has accumulated!

It’s also fun to collect “Sasquatch fur” from the trees along the trail and try out a beard, moustache or hairstyle. 

There are lots of family friendly après ski options to keep you busy: a games room (pool table, ping pong), a sledding hill, a pool and hot tub and an outdoor skating rink. My parents also have a VR set that they brought which was fun to try.

Just stock up at Costco before and with the full kitchen (and dishwasher), meals are pretty simple and that leaves lots of time for just relaxing together and family fun.