This may come as a shock to you, but I'm not the outdoors-iest person ever. People that know me were legit shocked that this summer I ran around in a provincial park, hiking, climbing rock faces and stuff. Truthfully, I really love landscapes, plants, and animals (I just hate sweating and tanning and spiders.) Manning Park, if you can make the ~3 hour drive out of the Metro Vancouver area, is truly a beautiful place to get some downtime with Mother Nature. I enjoyed it so much that after a day trip with bf and friends, I talked
MizzJ,
Sheila, and their significant others into an overnight couples trip. Since I wanted to share a bunch of the neat photos we took, today's post is pic-heavy and low on the text!
I loved exploring the sub-alpine area. Everything is super lush and green and dotted with colours from all the wildflowers.
The Lightning Lakes (a chain of four lakes) are really clear and gorgeous. We kayaked and canoed up and down the lakes and took in all the gorgeous scenery.
Okay, so the caretaker at the chalet we stayed at recommended checking out Three Falls. If you enjoy hiking in itself, it's pretty nice--just don't go there expecting a spectacular, close view of the three waterfalls in the park. We almost missed the first two because they were so far off in the distance! They were so far away I didn't even bother taking a picture (I only have my kit lens fyi) so here's a photo of some moss on a tree. We went quite far looking for the third before deciding to turn back; we assumed we had simply walked by it without knowing.
Bf and I taking a break near the first waterfall with our trip mascot (aka MizzJ and Mr. Artist's dog, Ecko). Yes, he is wearing a Hawaiian shirt! Yes, he is perfect and adorable.
Okay now here are just a bunch of photos of the ground squirrels that live in the park. Yes, I know I shouldn't be feeding the wildlife :<
But they are just so damn cute. They're so socialized and used to people that they'll come up to you if you even
look like you're holding food in your hand. This one is eating my homemade granola!
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| This is right before it jumped on bf's hat and scurried around on his shoulders lol |
Bf and my favourite ground squirrel was Triscuit Squirrel. He was super immersed in eating his Triscuit that he didn't even notice/care that bf put a Triscuit hat on his head.
I really enjoyed my time there and would go back next summer. Apparently Manning Park is also quite popular in winter for winter camping (wtf??) and snowshoeing, to which I say haha f that.
What kind of summer adventures did you have? :D
