Ultimate Camper

I got Andrew Skurka’s  TheUltimate Hiker’s Gear Guide: Tools & Techniques to Hit the Trail for Christmas. He defines an ultimate hiker as someone who wants to maximize their walking time and minimize their in-camp time. It’s an awesome book. 

 I have not yet hiked with a kid that is an ultimate hiker. 

Bedtime routine is important for most kids, and the less experienced and/or younger they are, the more important that routine is. Changing locations for bed, potty, teeth… Exchanging city and house noises for outdoor sounds… While those are comforting to adults, they are unfamiliar to kids. They may be scary or exciting, but they won’t help your kid get to sleep, or eat enough dinner (distracted!). Younger kids may be clingy and get in the way. 

A kid who needs an hour plus of strict routine at home will likely take a lot more time to settle in camp than a kid who does fine with jumping into bed and going straight to sleep. The younger the kid, the more they’ll need to get used to the campsite to be comfortable. 

Baby Boo staying up Very Late to become comfortable in the tent.

As a toddler, Boo stayed up well past 10, singing to a full car-camping campsite. We hadn't given her enough time to acclimate. At almost 3, she needed well over an hour of running around camp exploring to be able to do anything else. At 4 ½, she “helped” set up and then took half an hour to acclimate before being ready for an exploring hike. 

Running Laps at 3

If you want to shorten the settling in period, make your kids as familiar as possible with the whole thing ahead of time. Set up the tent in the backyard, sleep in it if you can. Hike in the same or a similar area. Carry their favorite book and the blanket they have always slept with (no matter how heavy). Talk about what’s going to happen. Look up trip reports or pictures from your destination with your kid. Going over the map and having the kid discuss what to pack is also good practice. 

As with everything else, know your kid.  Your first outing you should probably give yourself a lot of leeway and time to settle in camp, until you know how much and what kind of things are important for your kid to settle in at camp.

How do your kids get settled in at camp? Have you ever seriously failed?

A Winter Hike

January 14, 2012, Lee left at 5am to go to Denver. After a thrilling morning of laundry, a healthy lunch, and some not-very-quiet quiet time, I suggested a hike at our favorite park. “Yeah!”

Ee just had our first snow of the season. For reasons I am too embarrassed to discuss, she has no winter boots.

It’s mid 20s and sunny, slightly breezy. My winter short hike gear is my rain pants over my jeans. Her brand new rain pants are perhaps 6 inches too long. Heck, we can roll them up. Wool sweater, wool hat, wool mittens (all knit with love by her mom). We discuss our hike refreshments (Z-bars and water), and I remember that I bought a Platypus bottle and drinking tube for her. Fill that up and add it to her pack. I fill my Camelbac Mule, and we’re off.

Arrive at the trailhead, zip her up, help with mittens, and why are you wearing your sun hat? Put your warm hat on. She doesn’t want to wear two hats, please would I carry ducky hat? Fine, either she’ll get cold, and I can tell her that’s why I wanted her to wear her warm hat, or she won’t and she’ll be fine.

There’s enough traffic that the trail is already nicely tramped down. This reassures me as she goes stomping through snow over her ankles in sneakers.

She loves snow. She tries to make snowballs (not sticky enough). She identifies footprints (“people, people, people, deer or turkey, people, me!”). She asks why the snow sparkles, and then dances up the trail stomping on every sparkle she sees. Going up the switchbacks, she gets so involved looking at squirrel tracks that she follows them a few steps off the trail into the deeper snow.



I’m glad I put her in rain pants. She’d be exhausted already in snow pants. But she falls down every other step, both from slipping and because she thinks it’s really funny. Near the top of the hill, she complains that her foot itches. “Nothing we can do. Keep walking.” I’m so nurturing. At the section along the ridge where she usually runs, she starts whimpering because of her itchy feet. I have her sit on a bare spot and take her shoe and sock off. She’s got a tiny cut on the back of her heel. I pull one of the favored colored bandages out of my pack. The other heel is worse. Cause of damage is likely her jagged, razor-sharp toenails. I make a mental note to bring nail nippers on overnights with her. Blue bandages applied, she happily jumps along the ridgeline. “Side to side, side to side!” she zigzags in front of me.

At the listening point bench on top of the hill, we stop for a snack. She nibbled a Z-bar and has 2 raisins. I ask if she’s thirsty, and she manages to drink from her tube by herself. We need to tweak its clip point, but not in the snow. She admits to being cold and doesn’t complain about the warm hat now.



Down hill is slicker. She falls almost every step, but laughs every time, too. She pretends I’ve never been here, and tells me where we’re going, what’s going to happen, etc.

And then, her feet get cold. I feel horrible, because I haven’t even brought dry socks. I put her up on shoulders and stick her feet in my armpits. She sings loudly about jelly beans. An hour after getting out of the car, 5 minutes after she gave up on her feet, we arrive at the nature center.

I make her take her hat, mittens, and coat off. I take her shoes and socks off and realize that there’s a ring of ice around her ankles in the rolled cuffs of her rain pants. She gets a cookie and hot chocolate and settles on the floor of the store, where she is introduced to all patrons as “our youngest volunteer”, draws a picture, schmoozes enough food for a meal, and generally has a fabulous time.

What do you like to do on your winter outings?

What she Carries

Boo’s 5th birthday is coming up, and we were discussing what she would like. After going through several categories, I asked if she wanted anything for backpacking. “No. I just want to carry more of my stuff.” 

So when we went on an overnight, she carried most of her stuff. 

·        

• Backpack
• ~3/4 L of water
• 2 hankies
• Whistle
• Complete  change of clothes – both for sleeping or in case of complete destruction of what she’s wearing. In a stuff sack that is used as a pillow.
• Z-bar and a bag of trail mix
• Chap stick
• Wildlife ID pamphlet
• Park map
• Cord (to practice knots)
• First Aid kit (a few bandages, sometimes alcohol wipes)
• Squishy bowl and cup, collapsible spork
• Headlamp
• Cut-down blue foam sleeping pad (not pictured)

With the sleeping pad strapped to the pack, she looked so overloaded. We didn’t weigh it, but it felt heavier than I expected her to be comfortable with. I expected to have to lighten her load pretty early down the trail. 

Shows what I know.

I think we checked in with her 4 times in the first 50 yards. “How is your pack? Is it too heavy? Do you want us to carry anything for you?”

She kept insisting, “It’s fine, it’s light!” 

And she carried it. It was only maybe 1.5 miles on a slight downhill. But she carried it. 

.

Packing up in the morning, she added her paperback chapter book, and tried to put the tent stakes in her pack. She carried everything the ~mile back to the car. Then we hit a different trail in the park, and she suggested that we should all carry our packs on that trail, too, to build up our muscles.

Lesson Learned

•  The cord that comes on the backpack  is not long enough to regularly hold the sleeping pad. 

What do your kids carry at what age?