Manning Park Camping Trip (10 pics)

So I just got back today from my 5 day camping trip to Manning Park. Had a fantastic time! The park is about a 3 hour drive east of Vancouver at an elevation of about 1200 m (~3900 feet), so it's significantly cooler there than here at sea level. It's also a pine forest park with lots of alpine meadows at higher elevations. The camp site I was at was one of about 140 at a site called Lightning Lake, the largest lake in the park, part of a string of lakes that are popular canoeing and hiking destinations. Actually the whole park is covered in long hiking trails. This is far from wilderness camping, it's actually family oriented camping for the most par, for those who have been camping you will know the type, you rent a gravel pad in the forest and set up shop. Each site has a fire pit but unfortunately we have had the driest summer in history here so there was a strict fire ban. At any rate no big deal.

The first day I took a swim in the lake, rather chilly but very nice. Then I did a ~16km (9.9 mile) hike around Lightning Lake and to two nearby adjoining lakes, Strike Lake and Flash Lake. Here's what the lake looks like from the shore closest to the camp sites:

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=5293dfaa-99b4-43a4-a8b9-914bd202b93e

One thing I noticed on this walk was the abundance of mossy vegetation along the forest floor. Perfect stuff to grow fungus and mushrooms and some of the best shots I got on this trip are shots with mushrooms in them lol:







2nd day out I decided to rent a kayak and took a trip around the lake. It was risky but I decided to bring my camera with me. I felt that so long as I took the camera onto the boat last and unloaded it before I got out it wasn't likely to end up in the drink. Good think I did too as I got a nice shot of a crane lazily hanging out at one end of the lake, among some other nice shots:









3rd day, and it's time for the big hike I had planned. A friend of mine told me of a hike he had done in the park that sounded fun. I knew it was going to be difficult for me as I'm not quite in the type of shape I need to be to tackle this kind of thing but I decided to do it anyway. This is an alpine meadow trail that starts at a gravel parking lot at a height of about 1900m ( ~6233 feet) and ascends from there. The trail takes you through absolutely stunning meadows full of wild flowers and plants, though the best of the flowering season was over already. Much of it looks like this:



The whole trail is very long but I was only going to do the first 11 km of it up to the summit of the first of the Three Brothers Mountains. The "First Brother's" summit is at a height of 2272m (~7400 feet) So despite these big numbers the actual elevation gain on the trail was a little over 1100 feet, but my the view from up there! You have to see these panos, make sure to zoom in!

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=bdcab6bd-f46e-4fee-be37-2973016d16d9

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=8a3cb8a0-91de-48ac-8c66-1bf5069bdbb4

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=ffe49a4a-7482-49a7-89a1-53ae56eca3f7

As I thought, this was a tough hike, 11km one way 22km total ( ~13 miles). It didn't help that my shoes were hurting my and that I didn't bring enough water, doh! My legs were cramping up on me whole way back and I was spent went I got back to the car but damn it was worth it!

4th day, and last full day. I asked the girl at the small check in hut what she would recommend doing and she told me of 2 smaller hikes close by. I was still sore from the day before but the Three Falls hike sounded intriguing. This one also starts in an alpine meadow but it quickly descends into a narrow forested canyon and you are greeted with the site of 3 water falls along the way. Round trip this one was about 10km (~6miles).

I'm STILL feeling the effect of all those km, sore muscles But it was wonderfully peaceful and meditative. And making all my own meals by the small butane cooker was kind of fun too, though there was that one meal I made that was barely edible Note to self if you are going to make chili, make sure to bring all the ingredients to make chili or else you are going to end up with bland mashed beans and flavourless meat. The steak dinner after the long hike was fantastic though!! Saw quite a lot of wildlife and got some nice pics. All and all a very successful trip!





There are some more pics I'm not posting here, there's probably already too many here. Please take a look at all of them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/locut0s/sets/72157635210801252/