It's All About Me...

Camping Trip at Manning Park

We got back yesterday afternoon after a 4-day camping trip with a big group of friends at the Lightning Lake Campground in Manning Provincial Park in BC. This was the first time I have gone camping since I was 12 when I went to the Outward Bound Summer Camp. So I was really a newbie at this. And now that I have done it, I must say, ' I LOVE IT!!'

I was never a very outdoorsy when I was growing up and the summers in Hong Kong, in my opinion, was best spent indoors where it is air conditioning. So being exposed to the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest and Southwest BC has been a wonderful thing. And Manning Park is just beautiful! However, it was quite sad to see how the once pristine forest is now marred pine beetles. We could see the damage in different part of the park where many dead or sick trees stood amongst the healthy ones. It is depressing to think what would happen to the park if the beetles are not contained.

Lightning Lake Campground have drive-in sites and Dan and I got there early to make sure that the 4 sites that we reserved were next to each other. We got there just before 11am on Friday morning to find out that check in didn't start until 1pm. But luckily, 2 of the sites assigned to us had already been vacated so we were able to pick one and set things up. It took a while for the others to arrive mainly due to traffic and because a few came up from the U.S. that morning (the others went up to Vancouver the night before to break the trip up a bit).

We spent the first day pretty much watching the others set up camp and hanging out. There were a total of 18 adults, 2 infants and 4 dogs in our party and we were distributed over 4 sites that were grouped together. We took a short walk down to the beach a couple of times, but it was getting too 'buggy' for us to go any further. We each did our own cooking on our sites and then got together after the sun went down to sit around the camp fire and had lots of s'mores. It was hot during the day, but got quite chilly at night, so it was very nice to sit by the fire under fleecy banket! We weren't that loud (there were others who were making a lot more noise), but apparently someone complained and the rangers showed up to tell us to keep it down even before the quite time!

The first night was a bit of a challenge for some of us. We shared our site with Yoko, Jaime and, there 2-year-old son, Tai. Tai just could not settle down all night and was crying and screaming almost the entire time. Dan had his ear plugs on and did not notice a thing, while I fell in and out of sleep the whole time. The next day, Yoko and Jaime decided to call it a day and left in the afternoon.

Despite the restless night, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next day. I took Gander down to the lake at 6am for a walk and a swim (he swam, I walked!). I realized that I had just barely missed sun rise and was determined to catch sun rise before the trip was over. After a nice romp on the beach, we went back to the site for coffee and breakfast - bacon and eggs. There was a reason why we don't have that at home.... the amount of grease was unbelievable, but it was so yummy!!

Some of us spend the morning going for a walk/hike on the trail around the lake. We ended up doing half of the loop that day. After lunch at the site, a few of us took our kayak and chairs down to the lake and settled at a small beach. We took turns taking the kayak out. By the time Dan and I brought Gander out for a paddle, the little guy was so tired that he just sat there and did not attempt to move or jump out. But I could tell that he does not enjoy it much... he always look quite miserable and embarrassed with his life vest on!

That evening, the 6 of us that hung out together decided to have a 'potluck' and cook together so that we could have a greater variety of food. Afterwards, others joined us at our site for more camp fire and marsh mellows. When all the stars were out, we headed down to the beach too do some star gazing. It was amazing! I don't remember ever seeing a sky quite like that with so many stars! I have never seen the Milky Way before and it was so apparent the moment I looked up! We saw shooting stars and I managed to find Orion's belt amongst the thousands of stars... It was just so beautiful!

Maybe beacuse of the long day or maybe because of the quiet night, I slept a lot better the second night and totally missed sun rise! More people from our group left that day, but it didn't dampen our spirits too much. We went around the second half of the lake that morning and did the same thing with the kayak that afternoon. I went into the lake for a quick dip, but it was so cold that I could not stay in the water to swim with Gander. Yuka and Vincent's little Lhasa-Maltese, Gizmo, was forced to learn to swim when Dan took him out to the water and let go; he swam back to shore where Yuka was calling him... he didn't seem to like it much, but at least he is not afraid of the water anymore!

There were only 8 of us left by that night and we got together for a huge meal - pretty much finishing everything perishable off!! We had quite a spread and we ended the evening with the usual - camp fire and more marshmallows.

I had only once more chance to catch sunrise and I made it!! I got up at 5:30am on our last day and took quite a few photos on the beach. As I was about to leave, I noticed some movement by the trail, thinking that it was someone walking their dog. But it turned out to be a deer and her fawn feeding. Luckily, I didn't bring Gander with me and I managed to get within 10 feet of them and took many photos. The fawn did the hoppy jumpy thing that Gander often does when he is playing with a toy; I just wished that I could tape it instead of just taking photos!

It was still early when I got back to the site so I took Gander back down to the lake so that he could have one last good swim before heading home. Besides, he got so dusty and grimy from the night before that he needed a good rinse off. We had breakfast and then started to pack everything away. We checked out of the site around 11am and drove to Cascade Lookout/Viewpoint with the others. It was quite a dramatic view!

Afterwards, one couple crove back to Vancouver, the other car with 2 couples drove back to Issaaquah/Sammamish with us. Poor Jeff driving the other car was trying to passa camper to catch up with us and ended up getting a ticket! The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful for me since I slept almost the entire way. We stopped for lunch in Lynden and was stuck in rush hour traffic. It wasn't until 5 that we got home.

I still have a bit of unpacking and cleaning to do, but they can wait until this weekend!!

All in all, it has been a perfect trip and I just can't wait to camp again!!

posted by Anne-Gigi @ 3:23 PM