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Taking the Kids: Escaping Yellowstone's Crowds with Guides to Show the Way

By Eileen Ogintz, Tribune Media Services on

How much longer? It's the familiar lament heard by parents as their cars crawl along in traffic on the roads in Yellowstone National Park -- some 466 miles -- as vehicles slow to gawk at the wildlife.

But we're not driving. Along with our Austin-Lehman Adventures (www.austinlehman.com) guides, Matty Kirkland and Katie Gugliotta, we're kayaking on Yellowstone Lake to a wilderness camp called 7M7. We paddle five miles from the point where a fishing boat dropped us off and spy osprey and deer along the way, but no other people.

We'll spend the next two nights in tents with outdoor pottys, no showers and no Internet or cell service, and we can't wait, especially since we don't have to set up the tents or cook. Is that a bald eagle flying overhead? Wow!

There are many remote campsites along the huge lake, which stretches 20 miles north to south and 14 miles east to west and offers 141 miles of shoreline -- and we are heading as far from the crowds as we can get. Last year, Yellowstone had a record-breaking 3.6 million visitors, setting visitation records for the third time in four years.

The National Park Service recorded 906,935 visitors this July -- the second highest monthly visitation level ever recorded, though down slightly from last summer -- making reservations in the park lodges (www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com) sometimes hard to get.

When we visit the last week in July, the park is packed with families -- especially around Old Faithful (just one of the park's 300 geysers) and in the new children's discovery area at the Old Faithful Visitor Center. And despite plenty of room to get away from the crowds -- Yellowstone stretches for 3,472 square miles in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho with 1,000 miles of trails -- the National Park Service says the vast majority of visitors don't get more than a quarter-mile from the road though only about 3 percent of the vast park can be seen from that vantage point.

 

That was why we opted to let Austin-Lehman lead the way. The company has been guiding families in Yellowstone for 25 years -- several hundred a summer -- and though they offer trips around the world, including many specifically for families, Montana and Yellowstone remain their most popular trips (look for an additional Montana family itinerary next summer to include more camping) whether you sign on to tour with other families or organize a trip just for your family alone, as we have. Our family trip included my cousins Jayme and Mike Sitzman from Denver and their kids, Ethan, 9, and Hannah, 6.

"The guides were able to take us places that we would not even have noticed if we were alone," said Katherine Shatrau, visiting from suburban Chicago. She was just finishing a Austin-Lehman trip with her husband and 7-year-old son at the Chico Hot Springs Resort and Day Spa (www.chicohotsprings.com) just outside Yellowstone.

"This trip had no stress whatsoever," Shatrau added. "No worries about where to get gas, whether we were lost. All we had to do was wake up and bring our camera/water bottle/sense of adventure!"

Mike Sitzman agreed. The guides meant he could focus on having fun with his kids in such an iconic and memorable place instead of sweating the details. "And that was huge," he said. Just as significant, with the amiable guides leading the way, the kids didn't whine or bicker (much anyway), nor did they seem to want the electronics they can't live without at home.

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