While staying at Manning Park Lodge we decided to snowshoe the Poland Lake Trail. The trail starts at the Gibson Pass Ski Hill, 10 km up the Gibson Pass Road. the summer trail winds through the forest and crosses ski runs, but the winter route is straight up the side of the ski runs. We climbed 372m (1221 ft) in 2.5 km to the top of a ridge on Grassy Mountain.

Once we turned off the ski run onto the Poland Lake Trail, the route was much easier, winding through the trees.

At 1860m elevation (6100 feet), there was lots of snow so small trees, stumps and boulders made “snow ghosts” alongside the trail.

The trail climbed over a ridge on Grassy Mountain , then descended for 2.5 km around the side of Bojo Mountain. A right turn took us up into the Poland Lake drainage and the basin where the lake sits. The lake is only 400m long and is surrounded by trees. Somewhere in the trees on the far side is a small campground and hut (link).

We had lunch in the snow at the lake’s edge then returned by the same route, the snowshoe track well trenched all the way back.

The return snowshoe was 11.55 km with lots of up and down over a 4 hour span on a grey day in the Cascade Mountains.