All wet

The thing about rain and rain gear is that when it really feels like raining around here it's going to get serious about it, and I don't care if you're wrapped in Gore-Tex or nylon or waxed cotton or Saran Wrap, you're going to get wet.

Especially if you're taking pictures, because when you're behind a camera the water runs down your sleeves and your neck. Sure, you can keep your hood up, but if you keep your hood up then you can't hear anything.

This is not a good idea in grizzly country. I was hiking out of a favorite valley a week or so back and this guy was hiking in, literally swathed in rain gear, and he just about walked right into me. He never heard me and I was walking right at him.

"You'll have fun in there." I said. "It gets worse."

And it was worse. The rain started out the day before, just a wind-driven drizzle, something you could handle if you kept moving and didn't think about it too much. I crawled into the tent that night thinking things might actually clear up. There were patches of blue sky showing, even though the wind was picking up to one of those dull roars.

But as the evening went to dark the rain picked up and went from falling straight to falling sideways. And yeah, I paid almost $600 for the tent I was in, but for that kind of money you get a tent that stays pretty much completely dry, save for some slight water around a seal and some condensation on the poles. The sleeping bag is also a Gore-Tex type material, so the whole setup is about as comfortable as one can get in a monsoon.

But fall nights are long. You crawl into the tent at dark and dawn doesn't come for another 12 hours. You look out after a night like that hoping the rain has eased, but it was just falling harder, turning to snow about 500 feet above camp.

And even though you can stay another day if you want, you decide to bag it. The campsite, after all, is basically in a huckleberry patch and with that snow up high those bears are going to be pushed down. Sure, they've never been a problem here, at least not for you, but why push it?

Plus, you brought just one book, "The Old Man and the Sea." It's a great work of backcountry literature. Not because Hemingway won the Nobel prize after he wrote it, but because it's short and lightweight and fits into the pack easy. Problem is, it's not an all-day rain killing sort of book. It's not even 100 pages and you read about half of them killing time last night. You got to the part where the old man was just about ready to get the fish to the boat, before you passed out.

With the prospect of hanging out in the tent during an all-day rain you bag the trip. It's a soggy, quick affair. You get everything together in the tent, then drop the tent down, roll it up and lash it to the pack. The tent doesn't weigh much, but it doesn't pack all that well either — there's no compression to it.

On the way out the bull elk are bugling and you manage to get close to a nice 6-pointer before a cow with the bull sees you, lets out a warning bleat and the whole thing falls apart. You marvel at how such a large animal can disappear so fast. Glacier's elk aren't like Yellowstone's. They're wary and smart because their range on both sides of the Divide goes in and out of the Park. In the Park, they're safe. Outside the Park, they're supper.

So they tolerate you from about 100 yards, but if they see you any closer, they're usually gone.

By the time the elk have scurried away you're thoroughly soaked and your pants keep falling down because wet pants don't like to stay up.

Still, the place is awful pretty and you hate to leave.

Even in a downpour, it has its charms.

Chris Peterson is the photographer for the Hungry Horse News.