Campers Grin and Bear It Through the Rockies

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont. — It is 6 in the morning. Ice-cold rain is pelting down as we join a convoy of cars, trailers and recreational vehicles charging west on a slick one-lane highway.

We are in a tense race from the town of Cody, Wyo., to win a “first-come, first-served” campsite inside busy Yellowstone National Park.

“You are entering Bear Country,” the signs warn as we near the world’s first national park, established in 1872.

We are amazed that the nasty weather has not kept away the crowds of campers. The road to Yellowstone is so congested we might as well be doing the warm-up lap at the Indy 500.

Driving through the four-lane western entrance gate, we flash our Golden Eagle pass--which we purchased for $25 before leaving California, and have used to gain entrance to every national park and monument since--and take the lead.

There are brake lights ahead. About two dozen cars have pulled off the side of the road.

“What’s going on?” we wonder as the traffic stops in a bottleneck of extra-wide motor homes.

It is our first wildlife alert--human wildlife, that is.

One hundred yards away, across a stream, six elk sit in long grass watching a herd of crazy humans with video recorders, cameras and binoculars. Some of the tourists are up to their shin bones in thick black mud at the river bank. Others are balancing on fallen trees, getting wobbly video footage of the sleepy elk family.

The “looky loo” phenomenon, common at accidents on Los Angeles freeways, is a plague in Yellowstone. Traffic stops for buffalo, moose and maybe even squirrels.

During our visit, most of Yellowstone’s famous wildlife was smarter than the two-legged variety, preferring shelter from storms in dense forests rather than standing on exposed roadside viewing areas.

We find the thermal activity bubbling all around us far more intriguing than a handful of elk. When early explorers came here and wandered through the steamy yellow and cream-colored valleys, they thought they had found hell. Dead tree snags, scorched ghostly white, add to the unearthliness of the scene.

Clouds of mist seep through the dirt and sulfur fumes rise from rocky vents. Crystal-clear pools splatter boiling-hot water from their turquoise depths.

Yellowstone naturalists tell us this otherworldly terrain is a window to the center of the Earth. It is hauntingly beautiful, but take a whiff: “Oooh, eggs!” says Matilda, sniffing the sulfur and then holding her nose.

Our campsite challenge ends at Grant Village, where the parking lot is full and the temperature is dropping.

“They say this rain will be around another three days,” says a smiling park volunteer.

Campsites are filling quickly but we get a spot and, shivering from the chilly air, we set up the tent while the kids watch from inside our toasty car.

In the distance a hillside is steaming with heat.

At Old Faithful, the geyser that spurts every 75 minutes or so, more than 100 people have gathered to witness the countdown.

Two minutes before the geyser is due to blow, a storm hits and drenches us. Henri and Matilda watch the hot water spurt high into the sky from inside a nearby visitors center.

“It went as high as the mountain,” an amazed Henri says.

“Is it magic?” asks Matilda.

Despite the horrible weather there are big crowds at all of Yellowstone’s attractions. The National Park Service predicts a record 3 million visitors will come here this year.

“We can handle 3 million but maybe can’t handle 4 million,” says Ranger Joan Anzelmo. “There may come a time when we will have to limit numbers during peak summer days.”

Bundled up in our tent at night, we listen to the radio for the weather forecast: more rain and the chance of snow.

We don’t have the clothes for this weather and Matilda has caught a cold. We reluctantly decide to pack up camp the next morning and head out of the mountains into Montana and a hotel in the historic railroad town of Livingston.

Dinner is at the Lucky Cuss Casino and Cafe on Main Street, where $2.25 buys a feast of roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans covered with gravy as thick as mud.

Sitting in the booth across from us, drinking a beer, is a character who looks like a true mountain man. He’s clad in a leather, Indian-style jacket; he wears a pair of guns, and long braids hang out from under his weather-beaten cowboy hat.

We meet this man--Jim Long is his name--the next day at his basement pawn shop, The Down Under on Park Street. Saddles, gun slings and other essentials of the Old West hang from the ceiling.

When Long, 51, isn’t out hunting elk, he specializes in making authentic leather reproductions of the late 1800s.

“Yes, I am a mountain man,” he says. “A mountain man is one who lives off the land, who lives by trapping and is his own tailor, doctor, seamstress, blacksmith.”

“C’mon, Jim, are you for real?” we joke.

He is not kidding.

Long pulls out two loaded antique guns and spins them expertly around his fingers.

Livingston, like many frontier towns in the northern Rocky Mountains, is a community with a rich hunting and trapping heritage. Mounted heads of elk, buffalo and deer hang from walls everywhere, even in supermarkets and self-service laundries. We are so used to seeing them, we don’t even notice them anymore.

“I wanna stay in a hotel,” Matilda says as we drive north along the prairies.

Just before the Canadian border we make a sharp left off U.S. 89 to the “alps” of Glacier National Park.

The sheer cliffs of steep blue mountains are partially covered in sheets of white ice. They look like roughly honed, stone pyramids standing in the sky above emerald lakes.

There are about 70 miles of roads and more than 700 miles of hiking trails in the park, which extends into Canada as Waterton Lakes National Park and is designated an international peace park.

There are waterfalls, rivers, thick forests, fields of wildflowers and dramatic weather changes. Hikers commonly report sighting grizzly and black bears.

We walk from Many Glacier, a camping village, along a pretty trail of pastel-colored gravel to Red Rock Falls. We see no bears and Matilda is tired.

“I wanna hotel,” she says again.

We camp for two nights and then take the scenic 50-mile Going-to-the-Sun Road through the park toward Idaho.

“Where are we going next?” the young adventurers want to know.

“We are going to Seattle,” we say.

“Mommy, who is ‘Attle’?” asks Matilda.