Frosty Mountain

October 5, 2023

Distance: 21km round-trip

Elevation gain: 1231m

Time required: 6-7 hours total

Frosty Mountain located in E.C. Manning Provincial Park offers one of the most beautiful fall hikes. It is well known for being surrounded by valleys of alpine larches. There are two summits: the east summit and the west summit. The east summit is technically the false summit but it is what everyone calls 'Frosty Mountain'. The west summit, at 17m higher, is the true summit. It requires technical scrambling to reach.

The alpine larches found at Frosty Mountain are unique. Larches are coniferous trees that lose their needles annually, like deciduous trees. In the fall, the needles turn a beautiful golden colour before they are shed. What is unique about alpine larches is that they only grow above 2000m and in BC, they are only found in Manning Park and in a small pocket of the south eastern Rockies. I love larch trees not only for their colour but also for their medicinal value. The bark and twigs are a rich source of arabinogalactans, compounds that enhance your immune system. These compounds are so potent that they are now being used in commercial products.

The hike to Frosty Mountain starts from the Lightning Lake parking lot. It climbs gradually through Cascade mountain forest to the larch meadows. It is not overly difficult. A little more than halfway up, there is a wilderness camp with a pit toilet and tent pads. At about 2070m elevation, you reach the meadows where the endless groves of larches begin.

The alpine larches in the Frosty Mountain meadows

The east (false) summit of Frosty Mountain on the left, the west (true) summit is the big rock on the very right

Once past the meadows, the trail climbs up some loose talus towards the summit.

Climbing up the rocky slopes towards east Frosty Mountain

Me at the east summit, looking towards the west summit of Frosty Mountain

Looking north towards Flash Lake

Looking south towards the USA

Another look at the beautiful larch groves below Frosty

Update in 2024: I made the scramble over to the true summit. There is a lot of moving through loose scree and talus and it gets looser and steeper the further you go. The best route is to go around the base of each rock column and try and use the solid rocks as handholds as much as possible. I stuck to the ridgeline as close as I could. There are some high class 3/low class 4 gully climbs. It takes about 2 hours to reach the summit. You can then go back the way you came or descend the south face to the tarn valley and then ascend the south face of the east summit, making it a loop.

Looking towards the true summit (on the right) while on the ridge

Looking back on Frosty Mountain east

Back to 2023: Frosty Mountain was not my only goal for that day. I was participating in a hike-a-thon challenge for the month of October with the aim of logging at least 100 miles (I would eventually end the month at 124 miles). As Frosty Mountain hadn't taken that long, once I returned to Lightning Lake, I decided to hike past it. There are several lakes past Lightning Lake: Strike Lake, Flash Lake, and Thunder Lake (noticing a pattern here?). I didn't hike the entire trail - I only went a little past Flash Lake before turning around and looping around Lightning Lake back to the parking lot.

All in all, I logged 33km (just over 20 miles) that day in about 9 hours. It was well worth the effort.