We spent the last weekend of summer break (Labour Day long weekend) camping at Lightning Lake in Manning Park, a few hours east of Vancouver. We go camping every summer, and almost all of our experiences have been fun and memorable for different reasons, but this trip was one of our favourites.

We rented canoes and paddleboards, explored the lake, jumped off a bridge, and enjoyed the daily programming by the parks rangers.

The highlight of camping here is the lake itself and the numerous activites you can do on it. There are no power boats allowed and the lake is busy with canoes, paddleboards, and rowboats all happily exploring the little bays.

One day we rented paddleboards and towed Astrid in a floatie behind us.

Another day we rented a canoe and explored the farthest reaches of the lake. We watched rainbow trout leaping out of the water to catch bugs while we ate our own snacks. It was an amazing show.

The lake is really narrow, and has two halfs connected by a small channel. That’s where you’ll find Rainbow Bridge, a popular spot to see people jumping into the water below. It took Astrid two days, but she eventually worked up the courage to jump off Rainbow Bridge. Her only complaint was how cold the water was.

The other thing that makes Manning Park special is the daily visitor programs offered by the park rangers. Every day (in July and August) there are activities in the park and evening shows at the amphiteathre. They were educational and surprisingly entertaining. We learned a lot, like:

Q: How much space do fungi need?

A: As `mushroom’ as possible.

Astrid made a kite and there was just enough wind to fly it.

The Lightning Lake campground is great. The sites are spaced out and well shaded. The washrooms have flush toilets, showers, and hot water. We were lucky to arrive just after the campfire ban, that had been in place for most of the summer, was lifted. And we didn’t encounter any mosquitoes or bugs – double lucky.

The nearby Manning Park Resort has a well stocked store with everything from propane tanks to vegan ice cream. So if you forget anything, you can quickly pop over and buy it. It was handy to buy ice to keep our food cool.

The playground is the hub of kid activity. The highlight of Astrid’s trip was running into a friend she went to summer camp with. Her family was staying in the site next to ours by some divine coincidence. The girls had fun running around, eating smores at night, and playing grounders with other kids.

We did some small hikes around Lightning Lake and drove up to the Blackwall Peak parking lot to do the Viewpoint Loop and Paintbrush Nature Trail. The hikes were all flat and kid-friendly. The alpine area is normally alive with flowers in July, but they were sadly all gone by the end of August when we visited. Some fellow hikers saw a big black bear up there, but it kept its distance from us.

The last highlight of our trip was relaxing at the campsite and doing puzzles (we always print out a few before we go on trips). I love doing them, but I was surprised that Astrid listed our time solving them as one of her trip highlists (along with playing with her friend and jumping off of Rainbow Bridge). The campground didn’t have any cellphone reception, which was a blessing in disguise. It meant my phone was strictly a camera and the battery lasted for the whole weekend without charging. And we enjoyed some low-tech activities like reading and working on nerdy puzzles.

More photos and videos from our trip.