Remembering camping days past

Camping experiences years ago were discussed when visiting with friends this week.

Luxurious camping offered for $1,000 plus daily in one Montana location triggered our memories from 40 and even 50 years ago. We wondered if the butlers and maids accompanying families were required to wear uniforms.

We didn’t even have to buy a permit to pitch our 8x10 wall tent in our favorite upper Big Creek campground. Sleeping bags were put on the ground as we did not have any air mattresses. Campfires were made for cooking with competition to use only one match to light the fire. We went down the steep trail for water, and only once was there a nude sun worshiper there.

I always referred to going to the john and took along air refresher for the youngest camper. Except the time I accidentally bought spray cleaner. She called it going to the gladys.

To this day I remember fire crews using chain saws to cut firewood just outside our tent early in the mornings. Seemed like the middle of the night although it was probably 6 a.m.

Eventually the upper Big Creek campground was closed when the lower Big Creek campground was established. So we started using the lower campground.

I remember one campout at Kintla Lake. Campers from Chicago told us they selected that site as it seemed so far away. They were shocked at the full campground.

We bought a small pull camper from Kenneth and Mary Frazer, and it was a big change from the tent. My rule then was to cook breakfast and do dishes only once a day. Later we graduated to a self-contained larger camper. Memories include cooking lobster at my favorite Hornet Mountain campsite. Favorite fall meals were shaggy mane mushrooms dipped in the pancake batter left over from breakfast.

Another time we sprayed tires with insect repellent so porcupines would leave them alone. In all the years we only saw one black bear in the Big Creek campground and it had a tag indicating it was from Glacier National Park.

Last year our pinochle foursome went to Apgar Campground for two picnics. We built a campfire, roasted wieners to the favorite black stage, put a can of beans on the grill, ate a few healthy raw vegetables, created s’mores, ignored a bear by Lake McDonald and played pinochle the rest of the afternoon.

Kinda brought back memories of the old days when we were all maids, butlers, cooks and dish washers on camping trips.

Gladys Shay is a longtime resident and columnist for the Hungry Horse News.