Although the peak is in Canada, the trailhead is just off of the Trans-Canada
Highway, allowing us to make the drive from Seattle in just 3 hours - no
longer than it takes to reach many of the peaks north of Mt. Baker. The trail
takes off from the parking lot at the western entrance to Manning Provincial
Park - it's hard to miss, with the statue of the giant marmot looking over the
highway. Although I gather this is a fairly popular summit, there is no
official trailhead sign here - instead, start out on the trail marked
"Engineer's Road Loop - 20 minutes". This trail switchbacks twice in forest,
then brings you out on the old engineer's road. There is a sign here, but it
still has no reference to Mt. Outram. Turn right, and follow the old road for
a few minutes, crossing a surprising amount of small blowdown. Up to this
point I wasn't convinced we were heading in the right direction, but shortly
after the blowdown you come to a trail heading north, and the trailhead marker
there finally confirms that you're on the Mt. Outram trail. The start of the
trail wanders pleasantly through forest for the first few hundred yards, then
starts to get steep. Ridiculously steep! The payoff for the grade, however, is
that you reach the high alpine country that much more quickly.
As you climb, you have the opportunity to look south into the North Cascades - Mt. Redoubt crowns the views from here, standing high above anything else south of Mt. Outram. The last running water we came across was around 5900', where the trail crosses a pretty little stream. We stopped here and filled our water bottles, not sure of the water supply higher up. We broke out of the trees around 6000', and could see where the old route headed steeply up the ridge we were on - thankfully, the new regrade took a sidehill switchback here, going through flower meadows (sadly, past their prime this year) and huckleberries galore. Around 6200' we finally found some flat terrain for setting up our tent - there's a small tarn here that still had plenty of water in it, which could have saved us a few pounds of water on the previous 700', had we known for sure it wouldn't be dry. Sunset this day was just after 8:00, and moonset was at 9:30. With no clouds in the sky, the stars were spectacular by the time the sunset glow had disappeared from the mountains.
We headed back down to our campsite, running into one of only three people we'd see on this climb. We ate a quick lunch before breaking camp, and chatted with two other day hikers as they walked by our camp heading for the summit. They were the ones who informed us that the trail had been regraded in 1989, adding a half mile to the distance. I can only imagine what it must have been like before the regrade! After breaking camp, we made our way (very slowly) through the huckleberry fields, finally starting to put on a little speed as the clouds that had been blowing in all morning started spitting a few rain drops. All the way down we were reminded of how steeply we had climbed the day before, and our thighs continued to remind us of this for the next couple of days!