Day 259 - The camping in Manning, BC
On Friday afternoon, Amanda and Pamela picked us up from our laneway house. With a boot full with our hiking packs, we started the ~3 hour journey to Manning Park.
We stopped by Maccas in a town called Hope. 10 nuggets for myself. 20 for John.
As we ascended up the mountain to the carpark, we stopped by a lookout point to take in the view over Manning Park Resort.
At the Lower Carpark, we unpacked and prepared for the 1 hour hike to the first campsite.
We hiked for an hour from the Lower Carpark to Buckhorn camp, our campsite for the night. We were arriving quite late, so it was foolishly optimistic of us to think we would get a tent pad to sleep on. (Tent pads are wooden platforms designated for campers to set up their tent on. It helps control the capacity of the camp site and it protects the delicate surrounding flora)
In the middle of the night we set up our tents beside a family that generously welcomed us to stay in the patch of dirt beside their tent pad.
The next morning, we had breakfast and watched as campers from nearby tents and the family beside us packed away their gear and continued on their adventure.
The campsite had a drop toilet and a food cache. The food cache was a metal cupboard positioned quite a distance from any of the other tent pads. We had to store our food in the food cache so that if the scent attracted a bear, it wouldn’t be around any people and (hopefully) would be able to break into the food cache.
We packed up our tents and headed along Heather trail towards the second campsite.
Hiking along the narrow path, we witnessed dizzying views of the mountainside and forest. As we continued up the mountain, we found ourselves in the middle of a meadow full of alpine wild flowers.
Kicking Horse camp was ~2.5 hours away. We thanked our luck when we managed to nab the last tent pad available. John and I set up our tents while Amanda and Pamela devoured their lunch.
We spent the afternoon on a day hike to Nicomen Lake, 11 km northwest. After a steep decline and several switchbacks, we jumped into the lake before we lost our nerve.
We returned to Kicking Horse camp and cleaned up for dinner. Amanda and Pamela had macaroni and cheese, whilst John and I had a bean and rice stew that John had prepared. The campsite was well over capacity, with campers setting up their tents on the ground. It meant that the food cache tonight was full by the time we thought to put our food away. Pamela, John and I toiled away in the darkness trying to suspend our bags of food and garbage from a rope up a tree.
We left camp the next day (Sunday) at 9 am. With John’s knees ready to give way, we forewent the 3 Brothers ridge.
We finally reached the car park after 3 hours of hiking back. We didn’t remember the start of the hike being so downhill, so we were surprised by so many uphill climbs we had to go through getting back. We celebrated at the finish line with a selfie and some quiet contemplation.
It was a fun weekend and my first backcountry camping trip in Canada. I’m starting to realise just how nice the Summer here is, and how numbered the days are. I have a compulsion to do something every weekend and a need to get out of the house after work each day. I also learned a few things about the gear I have and what improvements to make for the next trip: Bring less water and use my new water filter; always bring warm clothes for the evenings; bring my sleeping bag liner; and bring fresher food for shorter trips.
