Tangle Lakes, Alaska--Still My Favorite Camping Place

I put up a pretty good show on this blog--writing about the Alaskan outdoors and camping, hiking, fishing--but those who know me know I'm all talk. I do outdoor things for five reasons: and they all have the same last name as I do.

Yes, I occasionally venture into the great outdoors because I love my husband and my children and they, in turn, love going camping. Me? I HATE to be cold and I HATE to be dirty--and I don't think there are caps big enough to emphasize that "hate" part--but because of my fervent love of my family several times a year I suck it up and go camping. Without showers. Or shampoo. For days. Yes, I'd have been toast if I'd lived before indoor plumbing was invented.

However . . . there is a place, a nearly perfect place where my family has camped since before Alaska was even a state (that was back in 1959 people) and it is wondrous enough to draw even me from my germophobic fetal-position to crawl outside with my wool socks into the Alaskan wilderness. The place is Tangle Lakes.

About six hours north of Anchorage in the Alaskan interior is a campground that is much different than the what you'd see around south-central Alaska. Instead of the forested mists of the peninsula there in the nearly treeless rolling hills is nestled a network of lakes and rivers that is Camping Heaven complete with sun, hills, water and blueberries. That's right blueberries. Places where you can sit on the hillside and just pick until you can't pick no more. And did I mention the fish? Scads of grayling, which look rather like a trout but with an enormous dorsal fin.

Though it is six hours north of Anchorage, just as in midwestern America the temperatures are more extreme than here on the temperate coastline. It gets cold in the winter but also hot in the summer--or as hot as Alaska ever gets.

Some of my favorite memories from childhood are our regular camping trips there: watching out the car window for a glimpse of Octopus Lake (can you see the octopus in the picture to the right?), wading in the water by the boat launch, nearly losing the canoe, Mom making blueberry cobbler from our fruitful pickings, 4th of July fireworks with birthday cake.

The last time we went it was so hot and the river low enough that the boys took their camping chairs and fishing gear and sat in the middle of the river to fish--yes Virginia, there is a heaven and it's called Tangle Lakes. But this year was my first time going with only my own family for company. Usually Tangle Lakes is an extended family party but this time it was just we Mittons and though I had every intention of making it just as big of a party as in years past this time it was a bit different.

While excellently maintained, the lower campground where we usually camp has been permanently closed to all but fireless picnics (and whoever heard of such a thing) leaving us to camp at the larger campground across the highway without the sweet little river running by our campsite where you could fish or wade right out of your tent door. The weather that is nearly always sunny and hot was this time temperamental. Andrew and Grace were canoing on an adjoining lake when a rainstorm hit, complete with thunder and lightning, leaving me to worry until I saw them dragging their water-logged bodies and boat back to the RV. There were more campers than I'd ever seen it before so instead of having our little spot by the river all to ourselves we were around enough people to have to tell the kids to keep their voices down.

Now don't get me wrong, it's still my favorite place to camp--we picked more blueberries than any other previous year (two gallons by my reckoning), the boys spent the time fly fishing and we played nightly card games until it got dark enough around midnight to make us think of bed but it was different and a little sad to see things changed.

The campground was still terrific, but Tangle Lakes was the only place where I could feel like a real outdoorsy Alaskan, an authentic adventurer, the place where I could say I actually liked to camp and meet nature one-on-one, woman to woman and hold my own. If it changes where now will I go?

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