Manning Park

Written June 16th. - More to come on the amazingness of Manning Park as I have time to type up lots of written notes.

Arriving at my first proper wilderness campsite, I actually felt rather out of my depth. My camping so far has been in serviced campsites on the outskirts of small towns. Tofino, Hornby Island, Squamish, all of them with electricity at every site to plug my van into, hot showers to wash in and gas stations, food store and cafes within a 10 minuite drive. But here, oh here in Manning Provincial Park, here I climbed a serious mountain range in my van just to get here, gears working overtime to make it up the long, straight slopes. Here there is no electricity, just an aqua lake down the steep slope from my campsite. Gravelled and furnished only with a government-issue picnic table and a firepit, its ringed on all sides by firs not by other campers.

Spirit of adventure or no, arriving I was a bit aprehensive, worried that the milk I had carefully bought at the last town, Hope, would go rancide, develop some sort of bacteria that would kill me painfully. Kill me because my meagre half tank of gas wouldn't last me to the next town.

Much effort spent priming, pumping and generally knob fiddling resulted in a tiny glimmer form the pilot light of my propane fridge. I think I may have actually cheered aloud. The sqirrels and marmots may be barking at my campervan door, but i can still feed myself and stave off food poisoning at least until my propane tank runs empty.