The original plan was a weekend trip to the Mantario cabin, two nights for some and three nights for others, but the conditions had other plans. Extremely slushy lakes, a spider hole at the portage head from Three Lake to Mantario, and difficulties encountered by recent groups travelling to the cabin - including a rescue! - necessitated a quick pivot. Instead of the Mantario cabin, a slightly smaller group headed to the comfortable confines of Peter and Heather's cabin at Seven Sisters Falls. That meant driving right up to the front door instead of a ~40km roundtrip ski, but we were still determined to rattle off a decent chunk of kilometres on our skis. On Saturday we hit the Pinawa trails, covering about 22km of groomed trails and less than 200m of pushing snow on ungroomed trails before wising up and getting back to the tracked stuff. Conditions were beautiful, probably the closest thing resembling spring that most of us had felt for many months. Warm, sunny, and fast. Evening brought us a potluck burrito feast, games, and many laughs. We didn't have the Mantario sauna, but a fridge full of beer and a midnight Worldle competition were pretty dang good consolation prizes. The next day we hit the trails again for a short 6km ski on the Seven Sisters Falls trails before heading back to Winnipeg. Many thanks to the organizers, Kasia and Peter, who still made the trip happen despite the last minute change, as well as the other fine folks - Matthew, Chris, Laena, Heather, and Richard - for a lovely weekend. Next year, the ACC goes to Mantario!
Our first official overnight ACC-MB ski trip since covid started! We've reached a milestone!