Day 24: E.C. Manning Provincial Park

Like every day, we start our tour right after breakfast and drive west on Highway 3. The landscape changes again, becoming hillier and the settlements become fewer. There are individual villages along the 150 kilometers and a lot of forest. After 2 hours we reach the E.C. Manning Provincial Park. It was established in 1941 and borders the US American North Cascades National Park to the south, which we visited in 2018. The park offers magnificent mountain landscapes with rugged peaks, deep valleys, and wooded slopes. We stop at the visitor center and inquire about the options for an afternoon hike. We have lunch at a lake and then start our walk around the lake. We observe nature with its plants and animals. The task of the Junior Park Rancher Program is to see and draw various plants, objects, and animals. This ensures that we can admire nature with great attention. After 2.5 kilometers, there is a bridge where many tourists hang out and jump into the water. In the middle, the river is supposed to be 5 meters deep. We watch for a while and then continue hiking. After 5.4 kilometers, we arrive back at the car. We are warm and we use the lake to cool off. It is cold, but fortunately not as cold as the mountain lakes in the national parks, but also not as warm as the lakes of the past days. We stay there and there are many squirrels living in the ground around us. They are in large numbers on the meadow and hope for food from the tourists. There are signs everywhere that wildlife should not be fed, but unfortunately not everyone follows those. We take a closer look at the little squirrels and three squirrels surround David with his bag of chips. He runs away because he does not want to share and stumbles over a squirrel's burrow and falls down. He does not sustain any injuries, but blames the squirrels for his stumble. We move another 5 kilometers to take a coffee break. Then the children receive the badges for the junior ranger tasks. Now we settle into our campsite, prepare dinner, and examine our remaining food. The flour needs to be used, so I prepare dough for bread on a stick. We buy wood for $12 from the rancher and inquire if there are bears nearby. But the bears stay away from the campsite, so we are relieved. Then we let the evening fade away.