Hi Parents,

We have had to change our winter campout to a one night trip from February 26 to 27. This is due to not being able to find a female chaperone for both nights. Ms. Forstbauer, another teacher at our school, will be joining us as our female chaperone, but we can only pull her from her classes for two days. Other VMS staff will work together to teach her classes while she is away.  A huge thank-you to Ms. Forstbauer and our school staff for helping us out. 

We will be home from the trip on Thursday the 27 at about 3:00 pm but students will need to clean up equipment so please plan on picking them up at 3:45 on Thursday. The snowpack and weather currently look to be settling down by the time of our trip next week. A detailed trip package was sent home in an earlier post. Students were also given copies. All tent groups have planned detailed shared suppers and know who is responsible for what groceries.

Our apologies for the short notice on today's cancelled trip. We had already planned a safe alternative snowshoe at the Lightning Lakes in Manning Park today due to high avalanche rating in that area. Although Windy Joe is a very safe bet for snowshoeing we felt given the unique and unstable conditions the recent snow has made we would be wise to play it safe and stay on the flat ground of the Lightning Lakes trail. Unfortunately, more snow overnight closed the #3 highway so we were out of luck. This is just how trip planning works in BC. There is always another day. Please know we are always monitoring weather and avalanche conditions and always err on the side of caution. 

We would really like to get the students out on snowshoes before next week's winter campout so we may still plan to do the Lightning Lakes trip we would have done today on Wednesday. We would shorten the day significantly, leaving at 7:00 and being home by last bell. Stay tuned and we will let you know if this works out. Sorry again for the inconvenience this morning.


In the future I will aim to update this page as soon as I know any cancellations. Please check here regularly before any trips. 

Hello Parents. We have a busy February planned in the snow. We will be away from school at least one day each week and we have our three day winter campout on the last week of February. Students have already been given a consent form for our three snowshoeing trips this month. The form is also attached below. I must have these back by Tuesday February 3. There is a slight change to the February 6 trip. We will be going to Zoa Peak in the Coquihalla Recreation Area instead of Poland Lake in Manning Park. These are both similar hikes.

I have also attached an information document about our upcoming winter campout. We will be using our Outdoor Ed class time this month to prepare and plan for this. It is absolutely essential that students are well prepared for this trip. Please see the attached trip document. The most important piece of equipment on this trip is good boots. While most student's hiking boots will work well, if managed properly, students with smaller, thin boots may want to wear a thicker winter style boot. As long as winter boots can be tightened around ankles they will work. Extra dry socks are important and gaiters should be worn at all times to prevent snow from getting inside the boots.

The winter camping trip is pending on a female chaperone. We are not allowed to do overnight school trips without one. If any parents are interested please let us know as soon as possible by email. If we get no response from parents in the next week we will begin looking for other options.

This trip was a highlight of our year last year. There is nothing like camping on pristine snow under a winter sky. If the right gear is used temperatures are usually not a concern. However, if there looks to be extreme weather in the forecast we will not hesitate to cancel the trip for safety reasons.