Northwest Trek Family Camp Sunday Morning

 Our campsite

 Walking the back trails to breakfast

 Back area tour. I did not like the way that cougar was looking at my baby.

Sunday morning camp early at family camp. She was set to ring the triangle at 7 but the amazingly loud birds woke us all up about 630. We got up, got dressed and tore down the camp. We headed back to the cafe in the park via some closed trails for private breakfast. It was great - pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, cocoa, coffee, etc. They gave us each a picture of our family they had taken on the first day, plus a NW Trek postcard and poster.

After breakfast we met up with a zookeeper for a behind the scenes tour. We went in to the back area and saw where the animals stay when they are off exhibit, how they clean the areas and what they feed the animals. We walked about a lynx, porcupine, cougar, beaver and got a look at a few other critters. The zookeeper tour was our last activity of camp, ending about 11. After that we were free to stay in the park all day. We chose not to do another tram tour but we could have. We looked at the few animals we hadn't yet seen, ate lunch and visited the activity building to make the crafts. By then we were all getting tired so we left. I was trying to leave while it was still good but on the last visit to the barn owls, Sam fell down and that was it for him. He cried all the way to the car and then ate a quick snack and fell asleep for the drive home.

We all had a good time - the camp was very well run with the right mix of fun and education and activities. We were busy the whole time. Camping's not too bad when you don't have to worry about the food. Yep, that's my kind of camping (at least when it's just me.)

Northwest Trek Family Camp Saturday Evening

 Helping out

 Making our nametags

 Making enrichments for the animals

 The NW Trek moose

 Hanging the enrichments on the beavers' glass.

 Sam and a bear

 Gabby and a wolf

 We played hide and seek using wolf howls.

 S'mores time

Lights out

The kids and I went to Northwest Trek's Family Camp this weekend. I thought it looked like my kind of camping - the kind where you don't have to worry about food or building the fire.  I admit this took a little bravery on my part. I would never have tried this last time. But Sam's out of diapers and getting bigger and Gabby has become very helpful so I thought it might work this go 'round. I worried most about rain and it being too cold to sleep (imagine in August!) In the end, we had a great time and the kids did well. They helped and stayed with me and listened (mostly). We were not without mishap and I admit Sam left the park crying today (falling down + being worn out) but it was overall fun and good and I would do it again alone.

Northwest Trek is a zoo that only has animals native to the NW. They try to present the animals as naturally as possible. I like it better than the full fledged zoo. They do a few of these camps each summer, this being the last one for this year. The camp was not full but had a good number of people - 18 folks from 6 families. It might not be as fun if it were full (crowded). You go on Saturday afternoon and set up your campsite, make nametags and animal enrichments, and then have a camper meeting. After the meeting there is time for supper, either in the cafe in the park (which we did) or bring your own. They did build a fire in case you wanted to cook on it. We took a tram ride at 615, after the last ride of the day. It was nice b/c we could take a little longer than normal and also because it was late in the day and lots of the animals were out. We saw everything they have in the free roaming area, including three of the four moose. Animals around every curve. 

After the tram ride we went to the wetland area and hung our enrichment items on the glass in the underwater/downstairs part for the animals - beavers, otters, fishers, etc. They were starting to wake up for the night and we were now the only people in the park. After enjoying them for a while we went to the theater for a quick talk about wolves and how the communicate. We learned to howl and yip and bark like wolves. Then we went out in to the park for a wolf hide and seek. One of the leaders hid and the rest of us had to find communicating like wolves. It was getting dark in the park and it was kind of creepy howling and going through there. Sam got a little spooked but it was lots of fun. We finally located her in front of the wolf exhibit. All of our howling had woken them up but we never could get them to howl with us. Since it was now nearly dark, we headed back to the campsite and enjoyed some s'mores before turning in for the night about 10. One benefit to being the last group of the summer was that we could have as many s'mores as we wanted. Not too helpful for sleeping, however.