Wilderness Camping

The last couple of days we have been wilderness camping in Manning Park which is a GIANT provincial park, that has a state highway going through it and lots of different areas around the forest to camp and hike, following the river.

Be prepared for a big blog post...

We took our new truck, Sundance, and decked out the tray with bedding and really basic camping stuff

We were so hoping to see some bears in the wild at some point, but couldn't believe it on the way up there that we actually spotted THREE of them!!

This was how close we managed to get

Then the second one wasn't far down the highway..we got about as close to this one as the first one..

We were buzzing having seen two bears already, then as we carry on along the highway Brendon noticed this guy getting the last of the sun high up in the trees..







We stayed in Mule Deer campground, the first night we picked a spot that was really quiet and surrounded by trees - it had an old woodpeaker tree in the front, which was a selling point for us! The sites were set up really well all with a little gravel area to park, a fire pit, and a picnic bench. Its pretty basic camping theres just a toilet and boiling water provided..nothing else..

                                   



 ..this is the second day into wilderness camping and I'm pretty happy with my usually wild hair - it doesn't even look this good when I style it :-)

The morning of this photo we were sitting having breakfast when we noticed all these hummingbirds around our campsite. They are about the size of my thumb and really fast so it was hard to get a picture of them but we waited for ages to get it..

This was a tiny silhouette of one way up in the trees..

A lot of the trails where still closed, because its only Spring there is still ice and slush around, but we found a few smaller trails to wander around

Beaver Pond was very still and wetland-ish, and the home to lots of tiny quick Chipmunks

And next to a different campsite, Lone Duck, was the Lightning Lake trail in the forest around the lake edges

I love this picture of the keen-bean campers..we didn't camp in the snow..

More chipmunks...

While checking out the open trails we went for a drive to see as much of Manning Park by car as possible

We meet these Ground Squirrels, that remind me of the Walk on the Wild Side clip on Youtube of 'Alan' that Landa and I can't get enough of...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzypOnklG60

They were so friendly we fed them and got in a sneaky pat which they didn't seem fussed about

We also came across a couple more bears, one just behind the barrier arms reach from the car (no we didn't pat these)



Our second night we stayed in a site right on the river, it was nice having the sound of the fast moving river in the background while we laxed by the fire all night

We did a big detour home, stopping first at Hope to follow the rainforest trail along the river to the Othello Tunnels that where cut out of the gaint rock faces

Then we stopped at Bridal Veil falls

And lastly Harrison Hot Springs which will hopefully be cleared from the Avalanche next time we go so we can actually go up into the forest to the Hot Springs. The town was really nice too, and felt like being in the coromandel (replacing the sea with a giant lake of course)