F6 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, JUNE 12 , 2022
vacation at an upscale fishing
retreat in Idaho, where the staff
handled all of the heavy lifting.
“People want to be able to
camp and get the camping experi-
ence without having to put in all
the effort,” he told me a few days
after my visit. “If you don’t want
to cook, we have a restaurant. The
tents are cleaned daily by our
staff. We will start and tend the
fire for you.”
The property overlooking Bear
Lake (plus an unsightly flurry of
developments) offers four tent
styles in ascending levels of luxu-
ry. I booked the top-shelf option,
the Royal Tent Suite, which came
with everything the Montpelier
Canyon campground didn’t: heat,
WiFi, electricity, modern plumb-
ing.
Seth parked by our private
deck and unzipped the front door
for the theatrical reveal: a king-
size bed dressed in pristine white
linens. A daring color choice, I
thought, as I glanced at the mud
on my shoes and the soot on my
clothes. He showed us how to use
the pellet stove, which we could
employ for heat but not cooking.
“Text if you run low,” he said as we
peered into a bin brimming with
wood nubs.
We followed him past the mini-
fridge, around a partial wall and
into the palatial bathroom, where
a rain shower in a tin wash basin
and a claw-footed tub threatened
to derail my plans to bike along
the lake trail. We circled back to
the deck, where logs lay in a fire
pit, ready for a light. Not ignited
by me, of course, but by the
campfire valet.
At check-in, I received a bag
with s’mores fixings, but evenwith that prompt, I still forgot to
schedule a fire starter for that
evening. Once I was in the tent,
the main lodge seemed so ... far ...
away. Instead, I texted my request
in between courses at the Camp-
fire Grill, the on-site restaurant
with its own roaring fire.
“Yes, someone can light your
fire at that time,” an employee
responded minutes before the
server delivered a heaping plate
of grilled vegetables and quinoa.
I hadn’t even kicked off my
boots when I noticed a golf cart
puttering up the path to the Roy-
al. A teenager in a baseball cap
and medical boot hopped out and
hobbled over. While Trent built
our fire on bent knees, we chatted
about his injured leg, which he
had broken on a trampoline dur-
ing a senior trip. He said he would
return later to douse our fire.
According to house rules,
guests must extinguish their fires
by 11 p.m. Six minutes after cur-
few, Trent reappeared, this time
on foot. Under his watchful gaze,
we threw a bucket of water over
the flames. The blaze sizzled, then
vanished faster than the Wicked
Witch of the West.
After all the pampering, I start-
ed to feel slightly alienated from
the natural world, so we decided
to incorporate more rugged activ-
ities and shoulder more of the
camping responsibilities. We
drove up to Logan Canyon and
hiked the 1.4-mile Limber Pine
Nature Trail. At the ranch, I had
spotted one deer, twice. In the
forest, nutcrackers fluttered by,
their wings seemingly dipped in
ink pots. A golden-mantled
ground squirrel squatting on a
log sternly contemplated us.For dinner, we resurrected our
aluminum foil and my mittens,
and we grilled vegetables and
salmon at a communal Rendez-
vous BBQ Tent. During a rain
delay, I received a text informing
us that no staff would be available
for fire duty after 9 p.m. However,
we could light our own if we
wished. For the last campfire of
the trip, we made (and burned)
s’mores, popped (and burned)
popcorn and boiled water for tea,
a skill we had mastered in Idaho.
We slept with the flaps open,
holding nature as close as possi-
ble. At dawn, I opened my eyes
and saw golden streaks over Bear
Lake. My gaze fell on the pellet
stove, which had turned cold. But
instead of relighting it, I did what
any intrepid camper would do: I
wriggled deeper under the covers.If You Go
WHERE TO STAY
Montpelier Canyon Campground
Off Highway 89, a few miles from
Montpelier, Idaho
877-444-6 777
bit.ly/montpelier-canyon
The campground in the Caribou-
Targhee National Forest has 15
sites, most of which can
accommodate tents and RVs. The
camping destination is primitive,
with no drinking water, electricity,
cellphone service or bathroom
facilities beyond a vault toilet.
Each site comes with a fire pit. You
can buy supplies in Montpelier. If
you camp on the weekend, stock
up beforehand, because most
stores are closed Sundays. Nightly
fee during the season (late May
through September) is $10, plus
$8 service fee if you reserve
online. Sites are free and first
come, first served during
offseason.
Conestoga Ranch
427 Paradise Pkwy., Garden City,
Utah
844-464-5267
conestogaranch.com
This glamping resort, which is
open late May through September,
offers a variety of
accommodations, including
Conestoga wagons and canvas
tents that can accommodate two,
four or six people. Guests in the
traditional tents and wagons use
the public bathhouse by the main
lodge; all other tents (family,
couples, Royal) have private en-
suite bathrooms. Tents are
furnished with beds, pellet stove,
mini-fridge and fire pit. Rate
includes golf cart luggage
transport, fire-starting assistance,
s’mores kit, weekend yoga and
loaner cruiser bikes that are ideal
for pedaling to nearby Bear Lake.
You can cook out at one of the
communal grills (the camp store
sells charcoal, lighter fluid and
other essentials) or dine at the on-
site Campfire Grill, which serves
daily breakfast (from about $8)
and dinner (wood-fired pizza and
burgers from $18, entrees from
$22). Tents start at about $169;
for the Royal Tent Suite in late
May, I paid about $600, including
taxes and resort fee.paying to extract the discomfort
from the outdoors. You might
have a nice hike and sit by the
campfire, but you will sleep in a
queen-size bed and maybe give up
TV. Maybe.”
When I set out for the moun-
tain states over Memorial Day
weekend, I imagined that my
camping experiences would fall
along clear-cut lines: I would
rough it at the primitive site for
the first half and luxuriate at the
glamping property for the final
two nights. But nature proved me
wrong.
Primitive camping in Idaho
Several days before flying to
Salt Lake City, my co-camper and
I dusted off our outdoor survival
skills. Christian opened a can of
tomato soup using his pocket-size
multi-tool, and I taught myself to
French braid my hair. Together,
we raised my two-person tent,
which had been rolling around in
my car trunk for the better part of
a decade. Two of the three practic-
es required YouTube tutorials, a
commodity not available at the
campground in the more than
3 million-acre Caribou-Targhee
National Forest. Nor would we
have cellphone service, electricity
or running water — hence the
braiding lesson.
Despite a prolonged drought,
Montpelier Canyon was carpeted
in many shades of green. A dis-
tant peak wore a milk mustache
of snow. At the campground,
which abutted Highway 89, tall
willow trees and shaggy sage-
brush helped mute the whoosh of
traffic and hum of RV generators.
Our campsite sat at 9 o’clock on a
cul-de-sac; the only visible neigh-
bors resided at 3 o’clock, and they
never seemed to be home.
Christian and I pitched our
tent on a smooth patch of ground
that gently sloped toward Mont-
pelier Creek, a popular trout-
fishing spot. Magpies dropped by
to share their unsolicited opin-
ions, and ducks with someplace
to be honked overhead.
We drove to Montpelier, a
speck of a town that Mormon
pioneers settled in the 1860s and
Butch Cassidy robbed in 1896,
galloping off with more than
$7,100 in valuables from the Bank
of Montpelier. (The former finan-
cial institution houses the free
Butch Cassidy Museum.) At
Broulim’s Supermarket, the area’s
most abundant grocery store, we
stocked up on items that we could
grill on the fire ring, plus a few
prepared meals in case frightful
weather forced us to close the
kitchen.
At checkout, I asked the kid
bagging groceries if the weekend
forecast — 80 to 100 percent
chance of rain, temps in the high
30s, possible snow — was accu-
rate or an exaggeration. “The
weather in Idaho is bipolar,” he
said dryly.
Back at the campground,
Christian built the fire, while I set
out on a reconnaissance mission.
The 15 sites were occupied by an
even split of tent campers and
RVers. On a message board near
the entrance, I read the rules: Bag
your fish heads and innards; se-
cure your food to avoid unwel-
come visits from wild animals;
and don’t use the faucet for bath-
ing or washing dishes. My hopes
rose, then fell: Clearly the print-
out was a standardized form post-
ed at all the campgrounds, re-
gardless of individual amenities.
On the return walk, I checked
out the pit toilet (I’ve seen much
worse at outdoor festivals) and
scanned the creek for trout (just
rocks). At the edge of our camp-
site, I cocked an ear toward the
mountains and listened to a cho-
rus of howls.
“Yep, those are coyotes,” the
campground host confirmed dur-
ing her evening watch. I asked
about other possible wildlife en-
counters in the vicinity. “Cougars,
or we call them mountain lions
here,” she said. “If you walk to the
other side of the campground and
look at the mountain, you can see
the caves they live in.” Follow-up
question: What should I do if a
mountain lion pops by? “Get into
your car as quickly as you can.”
After she drove off, I checked the
doors on the rental car. All un-
locked.
Christian had downloaded an
HBO series on his phone, our one
urban transgression. Tucked into
our sleeping bags, we slid his
gadget into a pouch in the tent
ceiling, so we could watch hori-
zontally, like mummies at a
Screen on the Green. We were
halfway through the first episode
when the rain started falling. It
grew heavier and louder, drown-
ing out the dialogue.
Camping is about improvising
and problem-solving through any
genius or harebrained means. For
cookware substitutes, we used a
game board as a cutting board,
my wool mittens as oven mitts
and a branch-and-pan combo as a
spatula. To overcome our audio
CAMPING FROM F1
When embracing the primitive becomes its own luxury
PHOTOS BY NIKI CHAN WYLIE FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTissue, we simply activated the
closed captioning. Crisis averted.
In the wee hours, a blazing
light filled the tent and woke me
up. I poked my head out, expect-
ing to see a car with its headlights
on. I looked up and blinked: The
sky was burning bright with hun-
dreds of stars set on the highest
wattage.Storms started to sweep
through the area early in the
morning. We sat out the first
cluster at the Ranch Hand Trail
Stop, a diner for outsize appetites.
“We get a lot of truckers, and they
can’t even finish the smaller por-
tion of pancakes,” the waitress
said, consoling Christian, who
barely put a dent in his stack of
14-inchers.We drove through the Bear
Lake National Wildlife Refuge,
lowering the rain-splattered win-
dows to snap photos of white
pelicans and a bald eagle stand-
ing as still as a statue on a wooden
pole. At Bear Lake, a father and
his three sons polar-bear-plunged
into the “Caribbean of the Rock-
ies,” a nickname that refers to the
water’s azure color, not its tropi-
cal temperatures. “If I only could
take a hot shower after the swim,
but, you see, my campground ... ”
I said in response to their invita-
tion to join them.
In our final hours, I grew wist-
ful about leaving the camp-
ground. I would miss the singing
coyotes. The sun bathing the tent
in golden rays. The bottomless
bowl of stars. A raindrop on my
sleeping bag interrupted my rev-
erie. I stretched my arm out of the
tent and started pulling up the
stakes.Glamping in Utah
At Conestoga Ranch, I stood in
the parking lot and eyeballed the
distance from the car to our tent,
perched on the far reaches of a
hill. A manageable walk, especial-
ly with my lightened load and the
slightly lower elevation of 5,968
feet. As I was consolidating my
bags, Seth, the general manager
who favored a park ranger’s pal-
ette, cruised up in an electric golf
cart. Not one to pass up a chauf-
feured ride, I tossed my backpack
— and myself — into the vehicle.
The seasonal resort opened
seven years ago with 14 Conesto-
ga wagons and 26 canvas tents on
the Beehive State side of Bear
Lake. Co-owner Larry Bettino
said the tents were inspired by
African safari camps: rugged
structures containing opulent in-
teriors like inside-out Fabergé
eggs. He added that the idea of
liberating guests from camping
duties stemmed from a familyPeople enjoy views of Bear Lake, top, from Logan Canyon in
Utah, as well as the water at North Beach, above, part of Bear
Lake State Park, in St. Charles, Idaho. Bear Lake is sometimes
referred to as the “Caribbean of the Rockies,” a nickname that
refers to the water’s azure color, not its temperature.“Camping is aboutgetting back tonature, testingyourself and notalways beingcomfortable. It’sabout being part ofthe environment.With glamping, youare paying toextract thediscomfort from theoutdoors.”
Kelly Davis,
director of research at the
Outdoor Industry Association