Different Decades: Backcountry Camping

As mom mentioned, our family went backcountry camping in Glacier National Park. This was pretty much unprecedented for everyone but my husband, who has backpacked through the Australian Outback.

My brother and sister-in-law have experience camping in the Boundary Waters but camping when you have a canoe is a little different than camping with a backpack, as they quickly learned about a mile into the hike. They spent the rest of the trip calculating whether their little luxuries were worth it.

My dad goes hunting each year so he's used to the perks of a hunting camp, where you have large, delicious meals and these little things called guns which protect you from things like...bears. Unfortunately, guns are not allowed in Glacier so we resorted to things like bear spray (like I'm actually going to let a bear get close enough to me so I can spray him) and chants like "Hey Bear" (which make us sound ridiculous). Really great protection, huh? Even though the safety video we watched said not to run because the bear could catch you, I thought well I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun at least one of my camp mates, so that was my plan. Luckily, we didn't encounter any bears at least while backpacking.

As for my mom and me, let's just say our limited experience involves car camping, which again involves luxuries that I cannot fathom carrying on my back. So needless to say, this was in the truest sense an adventure. To bring a little of the adventure to you, here's a video of us hiking into our campground. Be kind though, as this is my first experience recording video and I'm hiking, which as you can tell from my mom's admonishing may not be the smartest move. But I didn't fall down the mountain!

Here are some photos of our campsite. We spent our time fly fishing, reading in the hammock, napping, playing cards and most importantly drinking whiskey because no camping trip is complete without a little bit of booze.