National Parks Suck

Primarily because most don't allow dogs on the trails. Phooey. Secondly, because they're over-crowded and only offer a canned experience of the outdoors--unless, of course, you're in the backcountry, but we wouldn't know because dogs aren't allowed on the trails.

Against his better judgment, the human took us to Glacier. He even bought a 7-day pass and made us camp there. Ugh. Our first day was wet, wet, wet. On-and-off rain relegated us to tour by van. Unfortunately, we couldn't see much because the mountains were shrouded by clouds (and because we'd gotten dog snot all over our windows). As it happens, Going-to-the-Sun Road wasn't open all the way anyhow, so we went as far as we could and saw what was there. Mostly, what was there was a whole bunch of people running around in raincoats trying to take pictures with big cameras. We hope they got some nice mist shots... We were reminded of South Park for some reason, imagining hordes of little cartoon people shuffling around as a single unit, making that shuffling sound that cartoon people do.

Thankfully, we had great weather when camping day came. We trekked on up to Kintla Lake off the Inside North Fork Road (also closed part way, btw). The lake itself was beautiful. Though not only are dogs not allowed on the trails, we are also forbidden from frolicking in the waters. Hmph! The campground was a little tight: we were surprised that during the middle of the week in mid/late June, people were already adventuring out there. Then again, the ranger did tell us that people all seem to think they can avoid each other by going to the most remote areas. Not! Quarters were a bit cramped. Initially, an empty site buffered us from father-and-son dueling banjoes from WV (they were admiring a bag full of pelts by campfire), but late in the evening a father, son, and daughter invaded. Even though they said we were "good looking," we felt overrun. To top it all off, the next morning, the human had the nerve to leave us in the van to go hiking on his own! Ha, we knew it wouldn't be as fun, and we were right.

When we finally got to leave the park, we made a side trip to Bowman Lake, admittedly a very popular spot, so we don't know what the human expected. We traveled up the narrow, rocky road to the lake only to have a three parking lots greet us at the top! And they were nearly full. Talk about feeling defeated... We checked out the campground, though, and it was much nicer than the one we stayed at at Kintla Lake--and emptier. Anyway, the real problem was that on the way to Bowman, our side mirror got whacked a bit too many times and got knocked off. The human was all bent out of shape about it, so the crowd of people there didn't help his mood. He cursed and mumbled, turned around and ran us out of the park. As soon as we crossed the bridge to the national forest side, he breathed a sigh of relief and let us out to run around. We were very relieved, too.Okay, maybe they don't suck that bad...