Independence Day: Camping in a Grizzly Habitat

Hello!  I hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend!  Its my favorite non-religious holiday - I love celebrating this beautiful country that I am fortunate to live in.

This year we celebrated with a VERY rustic camping trip in northern Idaho - yes, even further north than we live now! ;)

We drove up to Priest Lake hoping to catch a first come, first-served campsite on the lake (i.e., "camping light" because you can get running water/restroom access, but really, my style of camping.). All the brochures promote Priest Lake as "the crown jewel of Idaho" so I figured it was time to see for ourselves.

Turns out, they were right - it IS beautiful!

Every campground that we passed on the lake was totally full!  I was shocked.  D remarked about how funny it is that we now live in a state where everyone camps.  Very different from the East Coast!

We headed north up Plowboy Mountain towards a "dispersed camping" spot that D had stumbled upon while hunting last fall.

On the way up the mountain, D tells me that we should "manage our expectations" which really turned out to be code for "be prepared to live like a pioneer for the next few days." =)

After a 6 mile bumpy drive up a dirt Forest Service road, we arrived here:

There were a lot of good spots to set up our tent, and it also had a fire ring and a lot of wood already chopped and ready for our camp fire. 

He just loved playing in the tent!

 And it was about as quiet and peaceful as you can get!  It was a very nice spot and we all had a lot of fun there.  It was definitely off the grid, so my husband was thrilled, but I laid awake all night long trying to devise our escape plans in the event of an emergency (i.e., bear attack)!

Bear locker provided so the bear will only eat you, and not your food.

We toasted our nation's independence by exploring the mountain, roasting hot dogs over the fire for lunch and dining on a gourmet venison dinner. 

Grass-fed, lean, and all organic too!

We didn't see any big game, mostly because M & I did our best to scare them away with our normal noise level, much to D's disappointment.  Although two cars drove by our camp site and stopped to tell us that there was "fresh bear scat" just around the curve from us, and asked if we had seen any bears.  Yikes! #toocloseforcomfort

 M loved exploring and playing in the woods and we all got a chance to get some fresh mountain air.  It was a beautiful weekend, but we were thankful to get home to our showers, a/c and cozy beds. =) 

Icy cold stream won't bother this guy!

 After we came back down the mountain, we did one short hike along the lake shore.  It was really beautiful, M splashed in the water and we found another awesome beach camping spot.  Hope we can get back to claim that one next time!

Awesome little beach on the west side of Priest Lake

 It was definitely an adventure, we'll be back to do some more exploring of this pristine area!

Anyone ever been to Priest Lake?  Seen a bear?

Glacier National Park: Driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road

Here's a quick post to finish up our recap of our time at Glacier National Park in Montana.

We woke up early and Dan made a delicious pancake and sausage breakfast!  M thought waking up in a tent was the funniest thing, so he was just laughing like a maniac and bouncing on the airbed, basically waking up the entire campground.  (They must have loved us!).

Breakfast time!  It was around 50 degrees when we woke up!

 We spent the majority of the day driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road.  It is a gorgeous drive, and definitely the thing to do if you don't have a lot of time to visit the park.  There is so much more to see, but it is the most accessible way to see some beautiful vistas and make short stops/do short hikes. 

We drove from west to east, stopping a few times, and then turned around going back West towards our campsite.  On our return trip, we did some hiking on Logan's Pass (basically where everyone else is hiking, it is super crowded there!) and got some good pics in the snow. 

Lake St. Mary, on the east side of Glacier

Logan Pass - the highest point on the GTTS Road!  There were mountain goats up here and yes, we had a snowball fight!

We did a little more hiking near The Loop (a hairpin turn on the GTTS Road), but it was hot out and I was getting nervous about bears so we weren't out too long. 

Starting our hike near The Loop.  D is part mountain goat so he does not need hiking boats or even running shoes, he just hikes in cheapo flip flops.

We eventually made our way back to camp for some relax and play time and walking around the Avalanche Creek area.

Reading some Emily Giffin chick-lit in the tent.

The campground had a "free or borrow" table of books at the ranger's campsite.  There were a bunch of books that you could either just take or borrow!  I have never seen anything like that (of course, I've never been to a campground before either) but I thought it was awesome.  Hotels should do this!  I picked up a good, fast read by Emily Giffin, "Where We Belong."  I was drawn to it because it was partially from the viewpoint of an adopted girl and Emily Giffin books are my go-to guilty pleasure. 

All in all, this was a wonderful, fun day.

Glamping In Glacier National Park

We made a last minute decision to go camping in Glacier National Park over Independence Day.

It was the best decision -- Glacier is amazing and we had a wonderful time.

It took us about 5 hours to drive there, we took a scenic route that took us through some rolling hills and along Flathead Lake.  I've seen Flathead from the air when we fly to MSP (thank you Delta pilots for pointing it out!) but never been there.  It's really beautiful, and we stopped for a nice casual outdoor lunch at a place called The Docks in Lakeside, MT. 

The stop was unplanned (I basically just said "pull over there!" as we were driving through town) but it was perfect.  Sunny, cool, breezy - the best way to start off a vacation!

We finally made it to Glacier a couple hours later, drove in the park and began looking for a campsite.  We pulled in to the Avalanche Creek campsite, which turned out to be the perfect launching point for us.

D and I had never gone camping together before.  And camping is one of those things that can either go really well, or not -- depending on your expectations and whether or not you are all on the same page!  =)  For us, we had a blast.  It helps of course that D is mister eagle scout, former professional camper and all that.  And we also brought along our giant air mattress, pillow and even the comforter off of our bed, so we weren't exactly roughing it!  Hence, glamping!

See?  Not really roughing it.

 M and I basically explored and relaxed while D set up our camp. 

Tough life, right?  The campgrounds had regular flush toilets and running water, so we were definitely not back-country camping.  It was a little nerve wracking because there were signs everywhere about how we were in bear country and needed to keep food packed up in the cars (including all toiletries too!). 

We had delicious Aidell's sausages for dinner and took a short hike around Avalanche Creek that evening.  The water was just rushing so fast, and it was so, so green. 

You could hear it all night long, it was magical.  The campsite was pretty full, I think D would have preferred more privacy/remoteness but I thought it was kind of neat to walk around and see everyone's different camp set-ups.  There weren't any hobos out there, these people knew how to camp!

The only downside was that M was so excited about everything that he could hardly settle down to go to sleep.  I basically walked him up and down the path until he fell asleep in the Ergo, then I put him in the pack n play.  He woke up in the middle of the night crying, so he got to snuggle the rest of the night.  But he was so cute because when he woke up in the morning, he just starting laughing and bouncing around on the air mattress -- clearly he was a fan of camping!

More to come on our day on the Going-to-the-Sun Road!