NEWS

Writer picks family camping over summer camp

Richard Ecke

When I was a kid, my family of four did a lot of camping around the West, eying black bears, marmots and chipmunks; getting blisters on hikes, and generally just exploring the great outdoors.

I remember one eerie night camping out under the stars near Hoover Dam in Nevada. It wasn’t raining, but the weather was warm and heat lightning lit up the horizon, several times a minute. We didn’t get a lot of sleep, but it was a beautiful show.

We might have been in Utah on summer when we were walking over a stream on a wooden bridge. The part of the bridge closest to the bank was a single pipe. I stepped on the pipe, slipped and fell below onto big rocks, whacking my head on one of them. I ended up in the lap of an adult with a cold can of beer pressed against my throbbing head.

Then there was another camping trip, in mountains of California or Nevada. We were stranded in a rainy forest teeming with mosquitoes and other foul creatures. It was a crummy spot, bad enough we turned around and went home after a day or two of misery. A couple of us got sick in a very primitive campground. My mom also was ticked off to discover later that the person named Ray who recommended the spot was not my dad’s boss at the time, but some other Ray she had never heard of.

Glacier and Waterton national parks in northern Montana and southern Alberta were favorite camping stops for us, although mosquitoes were bad in both places. Then there was that lake in Waterton where my brother and I decided to float around on some makeshift rafts; the scene was idyllic, except for fat horseflies that wanted to take chunks out of our skin, and did so quite successfully. In Glacier, we learned the best way to dodge mosquitoes was to build a big fire at the campsite, and then stand in the smoke.

My brother and I were active kids, and I remember looking out at an upcoming sunset, I believe in Sequoia National Park in California. My parents told me later they wanted to strangle us, because there were chains stretched across on this large rock called Sunset Rock, with a sheer cliff on the other side of the chain. We were climbing on the chains and sitting on them, as our parents scrambled to keep up from falling off the cliff and becoming buzzard food. So much for a relaxing moment out in nature.

Yellowstone National Park a half-century ago still featured bears lined up along roads, waiting for handouts from tourists. People would roll down their windows and hand a bear a sandwich. It’s hard to imagine today how crazy that was, but that’s what many people did. And I don’t remember hearing about people losing hands or fingers in this reckless interaction with large animals.

Then there was the time we hiked into Refrigerator Canyon east of Gates of the Mountains and north of Helena, and stayed overnight in a meadow. As we bedded down on our sleeping bags, we marveled at a great view of the stars and heard sounds of a trickling brook. All of a sudden, renegade cows grazing in this wilderness area decided they didn’t want us there, prompting a yelling match and some rock-throwing before we caught a brief overnight snooze. The second-day hike to a Gates of the Mountains boat landing seemed to offer interminable switchbacks, and plenty of chances to obtain more blisters on the feet.

Animals always seemed to be a big focus, one way or the other, when I was a kid, or when I had my own family and two daughters on these trips into the hinterlands. Those sunsets on camping trips are hard to beat. I never have liked sunrises, however, because they happen so early in the morning, when I would rather be asleep.

Within the last two decades, I obtained my best photograph ever of a moose. The moose was munching away on something in a swampy area to the side of a main road in Yellowstone Park. I got out of the car, snapped some shots, and the moose didn’t even seem to notice. Back at the Tribune, I mentioned my great moose photo and our outdoor reporter said: “Don’t you know a moose can stomp you to death?” No, I didn’t know that. I figured the moose was friendly as Bullwinkle.

However, the next time I was in Yellowstone, I didn’t get out to shoot a photo of a bison; I just snapped some shots out the window. I already knew those huge bison can be dangerous.

Camping is great, especially now that I have found a non-DEET insect repellent with a high rating from a major consumer magazine and a federal agency; Repel brand repellant features oil of lemon eucalyptus. I like the smell, so I don’t mind pouring it on in a pinch. I got mine at the Target store in Great Falls. It’s also available at some Walgreens stores.

All in all, camping trips give you some control over what you do. Want to see mountain goats? Take a hike from the Logan Pass Visitors Center in Glacier, unless the road up there is closed because of a fire. Want to cool off your sweaty feet? Stick them in Iceberg Lake in Glacier, or just about any other body of water in Montana this time of year. Want a tougher hike? You can find that, too. Check out a book by Tom Kotynski of Great Falls, “Discover the Rocky Mountain Front: A Hiking Guide,” from area book stores or the Tribune office for $16.95 retail.

If traditional camping made for unpredictable and exciting vacations in my youth, I have distinct memories of one summer that my parents shipped my brother and me off to YMCA Camp Child west of Helena for supposed fun and games out in the country. This was an organized camp, with cabins, a lake and adult counselors there to try to keep order.

One problem with this camp, from the perspective of this then-grade-school-age kid, was many of the boys in my cabin were jerks. They apparently didn’t realize that they were rooming with the future writer of the Spray of the Falls column in the Great Falls Tribune. Little did they know that I would survive the camp and go on to denounce their nefarious behavior.

Things did not go well at this allegedly idyllic campground. Disagreements with my peers were common. These guys did not attend charm school. On the last big day of camp, we had various races and games, with prizes offered. One thug, or camper, I especially disliked was in a rowboat with me as we tried to make our way across the campground lake. I remember the two of us trying to punch each other as we were supposed to be rowing across.

A counselor also was in the boat; maybe he thought putting the two of us together in the watercraft would result in camaraderie. Nice try. Or maybe if he had done a better job counseling the other camper, that kid wouldn’t have been such a pain all week.

Needless to say, we did not win the boat race.

As I remember, this week from hell finally neared its end. We did a few crafts projects, and my parents arrived to cart us back to Helena.

My parents were a sight for sore eyes. My week of misery was over.

Goodbye, summer camp.

I never went to another week-long summer camp. Thank God for that.

Richard Ecke writes a weekly column on city life. Reach him at 406-791-1465; email him at recke@greatfallstribune.com, or follow him @GFTrib_REcke on Twitter.