It is hard to describe the feeling I was experiencing, sitting in my camp chair after a good night’s sleep, sipping my Starbuck’s Via coffee in this forested camp. Everything felt right with my world and I again had a strong sense of accomplishment after a paucity of this kind of experience since my 2018 camping trip to Alaska. I was back doing one of the things that I so dearly love that got halted with the first round of COVID restrictions and subsequent health concerns. But overhead there were rain clouds drifting on by and since I was heading to Helena Montana today, it behooved me to get a move on and save the back pats for another time. So I finally after a breakfast of “camp oatmeal” I set about breaking down the camp which, hands down, was exponentially easier than setting up. I was headed to Log Gulch Campground.
Getting to Log Gulch Campground was a test of my patience. Once off the interstate there was about a 8 mile drive to reach the recreation area. This road served up curves, hills, hairpin turns and gravel the last 3 miles. All was well and good except within a couple of minutes, I was tailgating a black suburban towing an RV that I am sure he/she was terrified of driving on this road. They hugged the middle of the road and drove 5-miles per hour clearly exercising extreme caution of the third dimension. I was ready for my journey to end and the 35 minutes it took to go the last 8 miles was not gracefully endured. I was quite glad no one could hear my name calling or ongoing derogatory banter.
As I discovered my site, what appeared on the map when making the reservation as lakefront was not quite the lakefront I had envisioned. In between my campsite and the lake was the road (this was on the map with beach on the other side.) But intermediary were day use pit toilets, the lake parking lot, garbage dumpsters and a pavilion for day use. In addition, this was a campground of wide open spaces with no buffer zone between sites, hence no privacy. My preference for camping has always been backcountry sites achieved through carrying a heavy load on my back up multiple switchbacks in the heat so this plopping down a tent in my reserved spot in the middle of a larger area that is loaded up with RV’s, children racing around on their bikes (YES) , teens racing around on their 4-wheelers (NO), many campfires … takes some adjusting to. It’s a happy feeling to see so many families and couples enjoying the great outdoors and retreating into their air conditioned homes on wheels at night, but it sometime’s just feels too busy and too public. and too comfortable. Am I masochistic?
But my very public campsite ended up being a blessing and thus a reminder of the many interesting, kind and thoughtful people one might encounter. A young father saw me struggling with getting my tent up in the gusty winds and stopped to help me do it. A retiree saw me hitting my Coleman Stove with a rubber mallet (when I could not figure what else to do) and came to see if he could help (the mallet whop fixed it) … and many enjoyable conversations with strangers about where they are from or headed to, their dogs, etc. A hot meal now that the stove was working, a walk around the campgrounds and along the lakeshore rounded out the day.
I awoke to the squawking of birds in the pine tree above my tent, hoping they were not decorating my new tent with avian excreta. It was around 7:00 am – the end of the “quiet hours” posted for the campground so you might well guess a few of the boats were already revving up their engines and the trucks hauling other boats from the campground to put them in the water were clattering by. Since I have been retired, I have not been particularly keen on starting my day early, but there was that day years back when I too was out there at dawn —- so I get that youthful eagerness to be up and out. The biggest disappointment of this adventure was never discovering if there were logs in the gulch because I was either too lazy or perhaps very wise to choose not to hike the Upper or Lower Log Gulch trails. After a couple strong cups of coffee at my Log Gulch Cafe it was time to dismantle and reload all of the camping gear that was so challenging to set up. Once loaded and ready to go, I was sure the drive out would be much quicker as I had not seen any RV’s heading out recently. BUT SOON I was behind another VERY cautious RV crawling out the road…but this individual pulled over at the first opportunity to allow me to pass.
I was on my way to Cypress Hills Provincial Park in Alberta Canada for a two night stay in their “comfort camping” cabins. These are dry cabins (have no water) but do have electricity, a space heater, mini-fridge and a bunk bed. Cooking is on your own camp stove outdoors and of course the “loo” is down the road. Driving east through Montana on the Interstate almost became a pleasure as it was was much lass trafficked, the speed limit 80 in most places, minimal construction hold ups, and I was beginning to get the feel of why Montana had been branded as “Montana, Land of the Big Sky” with wide open spaces and expansive plains and rolling hills.
In no time it seemed I came upon the Canadian Border and the Port of Entry complex…which on this very low volume rural highway did not appear to be staffed. I waited a few minutes and not sure what to do I pulled up a bit to read an instruction sign. Before I could finish reading it I saw the border agent in my rear view mirror. The sign actually said one might have to wait a bit for an agent… but he showed and then was asking me if I was intending to “just breeze on in to Canada” (my interpretation)! Either he was very suspicious of me (I know there are a lot of older gray haired women out there who are full of malfeasance and trying to slip into Canada ) or just bored and wanting to have some company in this isolated outpost. He kept asking me question after question regarding my itinerary before and in the future. Finally I was given the go ahead and came upon the “Welcome to Alberta Sign.” The major geography of this area I would describe as rolling prairie.
I arrived at Cypress Hills Provincial 3:30 ish and before long I was unloading my gear into the small cabin that I would be very grateful for throughout the two day stay during which there was 2 days and one night of intermittent chilly rain. This large and sprawling park is part of Elkwater Town Site, a cottage community, and my comfy camping hut was near Elkwater Lake with the marina and a large sandy beach within easy walking distance. The big questions posed by my silly offspring in our text chain were: Are there elks in the water? AND What does elkwater taste like? Was tasting the water a “dare you” from my son? Disappointingly, I wasn’t able to taste the water since even though I clearly had no intention of going in this “dark foreboding water”, the “WARNING: Public Notice. Swimmer’s Itch” absolved me of any guilt of not answering that question. No parasite induced internal itchy for me!
The two day stay flew by with quiet time, reading, writing, and leisurely walks on the boardwalk and along the bike path by the lake. I was also quite grateful that given the intermittent rain and wind during this stay, that my tent was staying dry and cozy in the car.
Uniquely Theo 