Skied mt Kelly on sat January 4. Many snowshoers up there that day, but not many skiers. Thin at the road, but enough coverage to ski up. Not bad skiing near the very top with fresh powder over a supportive crust. Total snow height around 1m. The supportive crust turns to breakable crust and the powder turns to heavier snow quickly on the way down. Unpleasant and difficult skiing on at least the bottom 50% or more. also heard that bottom 50% of Mt Frosty was unskiable. We hung the skis even though we had a cabin for 2 nights... Not a recommended destination until it gets a good dump of snow -- sounds like it could be this week!!! Manning and Coq have a lot of snow in the forecast but almost none for the Duffey... Let's see what happens!

Also been  in Manning for 3 days for New Year. Although the resort is fully open, the coverage is thin. Forget about skiing in the forest below 1600mish meter. The snow this week will not likely change things just hide them. Quite more is needed. We did Silverdaisy where we did not dare venturing outside of the logging road. Poland Lake was quite decent. Mt Kelly was as Francis describes.

An interesting tour would be to go up Three Brothers, but instead of coming back the same way, take the summer route to the summer alpine lot. From there it is groomed for xc skiing (skate) so this guarantees a good and safe return back down. A long tour though with some car shuttling required.

How difficult is it to get from the end of the road to the subalpine?  Sandra and I will be in manning park in march and we are looking for backcountry trips that we can do while towing a chariot trailer with our 2 year old son Erik.  Would mount Kelly be doable (assuming a reasonable snowpack)?  Other options we are considering and Fat Dog, Windy Joe, Momument 83 trail, and lightning lakes.

We've taken him to Red heather and skied up and down the short cut to the shelter with no problems.  Basically anything that we can snowplow down we can manage with the chariot.

Scott, I thought you'd already done Fat Dog with a sled. Anyway, it's a piece of cake with a sled for the most part.

Mount Kelly would be an easy objective with a chariot if you ski down the way you go up -- along the abandoned road to more or less just below tree line. There are better lines down, but might be challenging with a chariot.