Great Vacation Drives
Be a survivor in Glacier park. Glide over beaches. Relive the Revolution. Groove to the blues
OK, so maybe I'm not exactly at the top of the world, but it sure feels like it. I've just spent five hours on a 6.7-mile trail that rises 3,300 feet--kind of like trudging up an endless stuck escalator. My feet ache, and that's not all. My legs are under attack. As the orange sun slips behind distant misty peaks, bloodthirsty bugs come out to dine on tourists like me who've made the trek to Sperry Chalet, perched on a mountain ledge in Montana's Glacier National Park.
Why go on a vacation that yields such pain? I was inspired by the reality shows taking over American TV. I wanted to know if my family could overcome obstacles, just like on Survivor and 1900 House, the PBS show that put modern folks in Victorian digs and watched them suffer. Above all, I wanted to leave my drab daily life far behind and find adventure.
Glacier is the perfect park for challenges and thrills. Voted the best place for backpacking by Backpacker Magazine readers, the 1,600-square-mile tract has 730 miles of trails. The climbs can be steep, the drop-offs precipitous. Grizzlies lurk in the woods. Although visitors won't get cash prizes as Survivor contestants do, they are rewarded for their efforts. With glaciers, abundant wildlife, and stupendous views, the park is "a paradise from a bygone epoch," Backpacker declared. Best of all, we could spend the night at Sperry Chalet. Built in 1913 and back in business after a hiatus in the '90s, Sperry has never bothered with such guest amenities as electricity and hot water.
As the sun set on a warm Friday night in July, my wife, two kids, and I entered Glacier for a weeklong visit. The glaciers that crept through tens of thousands of years ago carved huge, jagged mountains and vast, glistening lakes. One of them, Lake McDonald, was just warm enough for a dip. No need to jump in fully dressed, especially if you're wearing leather chaps and boots, like the beer-swilling fellow we saw one night. He sank like a stone.
Rough riders. I sympathize with beer boy's near drowning. City slickers often err in the great outdoors. I thought a two-hour horse ride was just the way to pass the afternoon before our Sperry Chalet hike. How was I to know we'd wake up with bowed legs the next morning? Plus, our butts hurt.
At 8 a.m., we began climbing. And climbing. And climbing. The park service says the hike to Sperry Chalet is "strenuous." My notes indicate a better word would be "sucky," as in "Dad, this hike is really sucky." That's partly because you gain about 500 feet per mile. But also because the dusty path is mined with dung from horses that carry tourists and supplies to and from Sperry. Evil, aggressive flies dug into our calves. Did I mention that I left the insect repellent in the car trunk to lighten our backpacks?
I did bring pepper spray. The Glacier area is home to some 350 grizzlies and at least as many black bears. The fear of these animals certainly adds to the heightened reality-show ambience. You can't just hike; you have to make noise while hiking, since bears don't like to be surprised (although frankly, who does?). In the rare event of a bear charge, a pepper-spray blast might drive the animal away.
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