The Lake is Lava: Do's and Don'ts for camping at Cultus Lake

I had a rule that we don't go camping for less than 2 days. Some people say they don't go camping unless its 4 or 5 days because everyone know it's an incredible amount of work to pack for camping trip and whether it's one night or two weeks, you still have to pack the same colossal amount of crap. 

But even though I had my alarm set for 6:45 am back in June and was ready to click on the coveted campsite, I wasn't able to book the weekend at Cultus Lake, just Saturday night. We had never camped at Maple Bay before but friends who go every year say it's wonderful so we decided to make the most out of it. 

Here's what we learned in our whirlwind 34 hours of camping at Cultus Lake

Do invite friends. We  found friends that were crazy enough to make the effort to pack for 1 night of camping and isn't everything better with friends?

Do invite friends with a boat. Total surprise to us, our friends not only were willing to pack for 1 night of camping but also willing to haul their boat along too.

Do try tubing. The kids quickly learned all the hand signals for 'faster' 'slower' 'stop' 'donuts' and their favourite 'wild ride'. Nallie could not get enough of the speed and bumps while Noey preferred to go slow ( I think the river float in the Shuswap river was more his pace). Both Sim and I got a turn on the tube and turns out, tubing is a quick way for me to lose my voice as I was screaming the entire time. 

Play the Lake the Lava. My kids are obsessed with the show "The Floor is Lava" where contestants have to jump over obstacles and get from start to finish without falling in the "lava". The kids pretended the lake was lava and had so much fun jumping back and forth from the boat to the tube trying to make the gap and not fall in the lake aka "the lava". 

Don't forget to pack Gravol. First day out on the boat was great but at dinner time I still felt like I was floating. It went away by the evening and the next day on the boat was great. But poor Sim felt like he was floating for days, I guess his mid-life crisis purchase won't be a boat ....

Jump off the dock. We didn't do this for long since the dock was just packed with people both days but you can't go to Cultus without jumping off the docks. The kids tried a million times to try and jump at the same time, not sure why 3-2-1-jump was so difficult but we did get some great shots

Learn to swim with mermaids. Our friends had these fun mermaid tails and made it look easy but when Nallie tried, she looked like a caterpillar trying to inch along. Nallie loved swimming with the mermaid tail though and has been begging for me to get her one now. 

Pack the bikes.  Best part of all the campsites we have been to this summer is that the kids can rip around on the bikes with their friends.

Do all the 'campy' things. Make burgers on the BBQ, roast marshmallows for s'mores, gaze at the stars. Stay up til 1:00 am chatting by the campfire. My husband probably wouldn't agree with the last one but we bought $20 worth of firewood and we only had one night so the Menno factor kicked in and we needed to keep burning firewood until we used it all up. 

Do make ice cream at the beach. Our friends had this thing Ice cream ball from MEC and the kids got to play with their food literally! We put in whipping cream, sugar, rock salt, fresh strawberries and ice. Then the kids made an efficient assembly line and rolled the back up and down the beach for 20 minutes and voila - the most delicious strawberry ice cream! So fun!

Don't wait too long to get a parking spot. It was a smoking hot 35 degrees on the morning we checked out and it seems like everyone in the Lower Mainland planned on making it out to Cultus Lake that day. We checked out of our campsite by 11:00 am and the parking lot for the beach was already a total gong show. If we weren't with friends, I think Sim would have just called it quits and said we were going home. We had to find a parking spot not just for the truck but also our friends had to park their truck and boat trailer. I was so stressed out with how busy it was and after over an hour, both vehicles were parked and my heart rate settled back down.

Do escape the crowds. Lucky for us we had both our SUPs and the kayak and the boat so we didn't have to stay on the beach for long where people were packed. Looking at the crowds on the beach, you would have no idea there was a global pandemic. It was so nice to be able to hop on the SUP and paddle away from all the nut show at the beach.

And lastly...

 Do try to book more days next year. Next year, I'll try again and maybe, just maybe we can spend more time here with friends. And now I have a truck load of camping stuff to clean and pack away...