Yurts can’t be beat for comfort in great outdoors
|
Julie Muhlstein Herald Columnist |
Somewhere between the rock-hard ground and the tiny-soap sameness of a motel room lies a compromise. Where? In a yurt.
If the thought of camping leaves you cold, if a Winnebago isn’t your thing, if you can’t tell a rain fly from a roof vent, never mind those stretchy tent poles, follow me.
Follow me out to the yurt village at Kayak Point County Park. There, in the woods overlooking Port Susan, is an answer to the love-hate relationship many of us have with the great outdoors.
"They’ve got a heater, the beds are really decent, and you feel secure," said Wanda Fisher of Eugene, Ore., who was at Kayak Monday with her husband, Bob, and the families of their four grown children.
"It’s the best way to camp," added Tracy Rust, the Fishers’ daughter, also from Eugene.
From 1963 until 1973, the Fisher family spent vacations in cabins that once occupied the beachside property at what is now Kayak. They rekindled the summer tradition after Snohomish County Parks and Recreation put up 10 yurts in 1999. The Fisher family is at Kayak for two weeks, staying in five yurts.
The lineage of modern yurts can be traced to Mongolia, where nomads crafted dwellings of poles and animal skins.
Kayak’s tentlike shelters, built by Oregon-based Pacific Yurts Inc., feel both solid and airy as you step inside. The floors are wooden planks. Circular walls are created by wooden lattice covered by sturdy canvas. The vinyl roofs are topped by dome skylights. Three Velcro-and-screen windows let in air but keep out bugs.
Sixteen feet in diameter, the yurts sleep six people on bunk beds and futon couches that fold into double beds. The park is installing bathrooms with showers for yurt dwellers, but this summer they’re making do with portable toilets.
The yurts have electricity, heat and lights, but cooking isn’t allowed inside. No problem. Isn’t outdoor cooking the best part of camping?
Ronda Fisher, Bob and Wanda’s daughter-in-law, was slicing potatoes for breakfast Monday as she called her husband and teen-agers to the picnic table. It was all I could do to keep from grabbing a paper plate.
In fact, it was all I could do to keep from calling the office to say I had taken up residence in a yurt, and I’d be back at work in, oh, October or so. But no such luck.
"Weekends are completely booked through October, and for the next week or so, the weekdays are pretty booked," said Jack Davidson, the senior ranger at Kayak County Park.
Eight of the yurts rent for $35 a night, one with a spacious deck is $40, and a yurt in the campground outside the village has a trailer site and costs $52, Davidson said.
Most visitors come from the Seattle or Bellevue areas, "but we’re getting a lot from out of the area. We just had somebody from Nevada," he said.
Rod and Trisha Sigvartson hadn’t traveled far for their getaway.
"We’re from Stanwood, right up the road," said Rod, whose family was boating, crabbing and salmon fishing during their stay.
"I’m not much of a tent camper," Trisha said. "This is wonderful, to have a little bit of comfort."
Reservations (call 360-652-7992) can be made a year in advance for yurts, which are available year-round.
"People come up here to spend Christmas," Davidson said. "The rain drives away the crowds, but we still have people who enjoy it.
"We even have writers who come out here. They want to put something on paper and not be bothered. They just want to get away."
Really, writers? What was that phone number again?
And don’t tell my kids where I’ll be, OK?
Contact Julie Muhlstein via e-mail at muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com, write to her at The Herald, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206, or call 425-339-3460.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
