38 FOREST OUTINGS 



From out on the sweltering plains of the Rocky Mountain front come 

 dusty farmers driving a hundred miles or more with a tent strapped on 

 the back of the car. They climb to the cool greenness of the Black Hills or 

 the wind-swept slopes of the Big Horns and spend the week end or perhaps 

 just Sunday. Sunburnt farmers of the Idaho wheatfields and sturdy mill 

 hands take to the hills with their families, club members pack up for a 

 Sunday outing in the forests where they practice their hobby and play 

 games and take life easy. Store hands and drug clerks, firemen, and police- 

 men go into the woods where the nights are cool. 



Men take their vacations far from home where the trout jump and the 

 mountain trails lead away to the peaks above timber line. Families drive 

 from Denver west over the divides to the spruce-rimmed lakes high on 

 the mesa country. If time is short, they will drive all night with the chil- 

 dren asleep in the back seat. Adventurers pitch camp and pack into the 

 wilderness where only a trail or a blaze shows the path of man. 



Youngsters working early or late shifts at the mills get to the nearest lake to 

 swim and laze in the sun. Small boys pack a bit of canvas and a few cans of 

 beans and eagerly make their way to the nearest water hole where they fish 

 and swim and explore to their heart's content. 



To go as a forest guest, yourself, with a car or pack train and tentage; to 

 see and talk with many different people out there enjoying themselves; to 

 forget, or to forget to mention official connection and interest in the spec- 

 tacle that is the only way really to understand what forest recreation is in 

 this modern time and age. The notes which follow were so obtained. They 

 are sketches of actual people candid shots of camper guests at actual sites 

 on national-forest land. 



YOUNG COUPLE FROM SPOKANE . . . Here the northern Rockies stretch 

 like long fingers into northern Idaho. Between the tree-covered slopes of these 

 ranges lies Priest Lake, 20 miles long, on the Kaniksu National Forest. 

 Only one shore of this lake is accessible by road and on this side lie the free 

 campgrounds where this young couple from Spokane were spending their 2 

 weeks' vacation. 



All afternoon they lay stretched out on the wide white beach in the heat of 



