Fall RV Camping in BC, a Scramble, and a Hike/Paddle of 3 Lakes

I've got a little squirrel right by my foot right now. Don't know if we can get him on the camera. There he is. Hello. Hi Mr. Squirrel. Hi everyone. So we're actually finally camping again. It's been a few weeks and we're really happy. The weather's great. Beautiful fall day and we're just out for a couple of days and we'll share this trip with you and also we'll talk about fall and transitioning and some of the changes that are happening. So we hope you enjoy this video. We haven't been out for a few weeks in part because of the significant changes in I guess the environment and the weather when we got back from our trip to the Rockies. When we returned home I think for about 10 days we were just socked in and smoked from all the wildfires on the west coast. And then as that ended and fall started we went into a really cold fall. It started to rain. We actually had our fireplace on at home. It was quite cold and stormy too. Windy. Not really where we wanted to travel. Anyway that actually has cleared and we've had some really nice weather as we've started October. I mean yesterday we were in 23 degree weather and it's been sunny and beautiful and so we're looking forward to traveling a little bit more this fall. So this weekend we got out to an area near Princeton and Karamea somewhere in between. It was a recreation site. Really nice site. We were camped right on the river. We actually had probably the worst of the campsites and it was still it was still quite nice and the only real negative thing is we couldn't quite get our van exactly level. Pretty close but not quite. We had a nice evening. Enjoyed a warm evening. We were out in shorts until 10 o'clock at night for early October. That's pretty good. Yeah it's really good. Enjoyed a fire. Next morning I did my usual up and clambered up a ridge that was behind our campsite. Just beautiful. Sun was coming up. Very nice scenery. Very nice rock and ponderosa pines. Just a nice little climb up the ridge. It was it was quite pleasant. Yeah so we'll show you some of the clips from Gordon's little jaunt up the mountain. So no easy way down and then up. I was kind of hoping when I came up here that there'd be a continual increase in this bump. Didn't have access to any GPS maps or any hard maps. So yeah this hike ends here. Still very beautiful. So we're down there. I can't quite zoom in that far with this camera but right down by the river. Nice spot but you can see it's close to the highway Chopsticks work better than a spoon or fork to keep the traffic's getting busy over there on came up right by that fire pit. Yeah I'm very pleased with my downhill navigation. Sometimes that's the worst. Much easier going uphill. Downhill usually harder to keep track of where you want to go and where you've been. Probably the most dangerous part crossing the ditch by the road. Somebody's up. I was sitting outside but I got I got cold because it was getting a little windy. And then we headed over decided to head up to Manning Park. It was somewhat cloudy but we got here yesterday and got a wonderful campsite. We did actually stop by and try the night before but the two campgrounds that were still open in Manning Park were full and that was a Saturday night. So on the weekends it's still really busy but when we arrived yesterday it was great. There was a lot of campsites still open and it's all first come first serve and we've got this gorgeous sight. Oh we've got a little peek above view of the lake so it's just pretty amazing. Yeah if we were real estate agents we'd be saying view of the lake but it's actually it's actually you can just barely see a little bit of the bay. Yeah just through the trees but it's still really nice. You can see the water sparkling right now. So then we came in and we decided to do a paddle and a hike. So we hiked. We were originally going to hike up to a lake called Thunder Lake and that's about 10 kilometers but we were it was just too late in the day. We weren't going to be able to make it to that lake and then paddle and hike on the way back. So we ended up going to a lake called Strike Lake and then we paddled Strike Lake then portaged back to Flash Lake I think it is and then paddled Flash Lake and then a very short portage from there to the end of the main Lightning Lake and then paddled back to the little bay that's just behind our campsite. So that was a lot of fun and the weather was okay. It didn't rain. It was a little bit cloudy. A little bit of sun but it was kind of nice. Made for a little bit of a a bit of a tiring day I found but it was nice and we had a nice evening here although it got a little cooler. It got down to about seven degrees so not wearing shorts and you can tell we're kind of out of luck. Yeah it was it was cool this morning but that's what you'd expect in the mountains. That's actually the Skyline 1 trails just on the top a little bit farther back on that ridge from one of our videos this summer. we can go. It doesn't look very far and then we'll portage again to Lightning Lake. There's a little island in this lake. It's quite cute. It was a long pack between Strike Lake and this lake. I guess it's probably about a mile or something so not that far but long enough carrying the boat on your back or on your shoulder. Fun though. Gordon's pretty tired now and I almost had an accident when I was getting off the boat at Strike Lake. My one leg stayed on the boat the other one was trying to get on shore and then the boat started moving away and Gordon didn't help me. I was laughing. So I nearly did like a complete split with my legs. I think I would have been very seriously injured if I had to do a split. So where the dead trees are up there I believe that might be the Skyline trail that we did recently. We'll put a link to that video. Okay so we're out of Flash Lake and now we're on the trail again and hopefully not as long to Lightning Lake. The end of the Lightning Lakes chain and then that'll take us back to our campground. Okay now we're on Lightning Lakes. It was a little bit of a scramble down that slope there. We couldn't really find a good access point but we're in the water now so we're good to go. We're both getting tired. Gordon's very tired. Yeah it's awkward to carry that boat for a long period of time on the trail. Very shallow. We may have to get out. Where's the deepest? A little bit to the right. Yeah drag us through. Drag us through and then you want to go right I think. Okay we're good. There's the canoe rental place over there and the main beach of the Lightning Lakes day use area. Spruce Bay Beach. Nice adventure day. Hiked this morning. 7k hike to the lake and then a paddle all the way back. Lots of fun. Back to the campsite. We're enjoying our post hike beer. And Pringles. It's very nice. It's the Howe Sound Brewing which is a brewery in Squamish BC and it's the Skypilot Northwest Pale Ale. It's good beer. Cheers. Hey Mr. Whiskey Jack. Mr. Whiskey Jack. So this is one of our favorite go-to meals for camping. Just um put some vegetables and for Gordon fish with some vegetables and potato. Lots of seasoning and olive oil in a foil packet. And for me I have the same except for lentils instead of fish. And this was a hard-earned meal because the wood we bought from the park's people here like half of it's really damp so keeping the fire going was like a constant effort over the last like half hour in order to get something we could cook this on. One of the most challenging fires I've ever built. So with dinner we have a Cabernet Merlot from Monte Creek Ranch and this is actually a winery I believe that is in Kamloops BC. Cheers. Very good. Good morning. Good morning. So I didn't go for a paddle instead I went for a walk to the little bridge. Very nice out. Mornings are the best. Don't tell anyone. Thank you so much for watching our video. We hope you enjoyed it and if you did enjoy it please be sure to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already and we will see you next time. Till next time. RV sites right here not too far from Lightning Lake.