Manning Park

Last week Rosie and I finally headed out for our overnight trip. Both our families were on vacation so we subcontracted our dogs and the flower jungles they live in and headed out last Tuesday. Our original destination was to be a lake up back past Harrison lake somewheres but the lack of road reports and the high concentration of correctional facilities in the area had us looking at the last moment for a new location. That morning we decided on Manning Park. We got a later start post Rosie's crazy day shift and after a caffeine refuel we reached the parking lot at about noon.
Setting out.... our final destination( we didnt know it at the time) was tucked in on the backside of the farthest of the three rocky peaks. We were at first going to just go to the first camp, drop our packs and do more hiking but when we got to the first camp in about 1 hour we decided that that was hardly worth it and set out for the next one. 

Our Gum.. it put Spark into our Stride and gave us our daily dose of Vit B1 and B6.

The first hour and half wound through some tree/meadow/small flowered areas and then climbed up out of the trees into the alpine

Once we reached the alpine the flowers were in full bloom. Just absolutely gorgeous.

There were millions of these fuzzy soft white flowers/seed pods officially the White Western Anemone but to any one who is a true Dr Suess fan would easily recognize the resemblance they have to the wonderful Thneed producing Truffula Trees in The Lorax. They were white, incredibly soft and EVERYWHERE!!!

The trail wound up and down on the top of the ridge and hillside with sweeping views to the south.

It then wove in and around the three brothers more rocky dry peaks still with the last of the snow in the shaded areas.

Headed down again through some trees crossing tons of little run off streams.

 
Then CAMP!! We got there about 430ish set up our tent on the little tent pads and enjoyed some bare foot time!

Rosie checking out the nasi we were cooking for dinner.

When the sun set across the meadow the flowers were just ethereal.

The bugs were so incredibly bad we headed into our tent around 830ish for some scrabble.

As we are used to camping at sea level (read within 10feet of the high tide line) camping at 2200 meters was abit of a frosty experience!!!.

For those of you wanting to see the flowers  but not wanting to go to Kickinghorse (27km return) its a great day hike up to the meadows or a short 4km hike to the first camp.