EC Manning Park

We needed a place to camp between Banff and Seattle, so I scoured our Adventure Atlas (Rand McNally) to find a campground and settled on EC Manning Provincial Park in BC.  We arrived to find our reserved spot filled, but without people.  Hmmm...  After driving around a bit and talking to a ranger, we made our way back to our site to find the dad examining our reservation sheet on the campsite post.  We hung out for a bit at the campground playground while they packed up and left, and then made our way over to our riverfront site.  And oh, was it worth the wait.  

This is the view from our campsite.  Those are our kids exploring the (very chilly) waters on our first evening.  They were quite cranky that we wouldn't let them get on their suits and actually swim, but they had camp chores, so testing the waters was all they could do.        

For whatever crazy reason, NS and NB decided they needed to do a polar plunge.  BUT, they were lame with their "plunge."  It turned into a wade, but with much enouragement from us, they agreed to sit down.  Some in deeper waters than others.  As the day worn on, they even agreed to dunk the head.  We eventually got them to swim the rapids, some small currents in our part of the river.  After much trepidation, they had a ton of fun and rode the rapids over and over again.  Thank you to the girls from another campsite who showed my guys that it was fun and easy!    

NS at the rapids.  What you see is pretty much all there is to them, they go just beyond the picture to end at some low rocks.  The kids really enjoyed doing this, and we spent the better portion of our first whole day there just swimming in the river.            

Spotted sand piper at Lightning Lakes in EC Manning.  NB wanted me to video this little dude because he liked his song so much, but we were actually pretty far away and I didn't think the microphone on my camera would be able to pick it up so nicely.  We initially were going to do a lake hike, but NS snarkily suggested the Frosty Mtn Trail, and I thought that sounded like a dandy idea.  My hip has been giving me trouble all year, so I thought the uneven terrain and the steep ascent would be great for me.  I was right, so I'm very thankful the snark in my son came out that day!  Unfortunately, I had some very cranky campers who were displeased with taking such a hike.  Yeah, we hiked a good attitude into those dudes. I told them we wouldn't stop hiking until all attitudes improved.  

Did the ruffled grouse spotting improve attitudes?  No.  On we hike!              

Beautiful forest scenery improve attitudes?  Not at all.  Didn't even look.  Grumble, grumble grumble...on we hike!            

Trees swarming with mountain chickadees improve attitudes?  I spent a lot of time trying to get this picture, and so others got into the photography aspect, and that finally brought out the good moods.  So we did indeed turn back and head back down the mountain, and from then on, we were good nature observers.      

We checked out many mushrooms, including this mini mushroom.          

These flowers caught our eye.              

The rock slide where G paused to collect himself.           K even thought she saw a bear.  I was keeping my eyes out, because bears had been spotted in the areas near where we were hiking, and I kept pausing because I thought I heard things, but I never saw a bear.  K said she saw a large animal, though, and she would prefer us to pick up the pace, thank you.   All in all, our time at EC Manning was fun and relaxing.