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Posted by tbastress on November 20, 2007 at 12:47:54 pm EST
In reply to Hiking with Children posted by billock on November 20, 2007 at 12:21:16 pm EST

I took my 6-year-old son backpacking three weeks ago. We hiked 6.1 miles to the camp on day 1 and hiked 3.8 miles back to the trail head on day 2. My son took his own school backpack along, which weighed around 8 lbs with everything in it.

The first day, I ended up carrying his backpack most of the way because early on he said it was hurting his back. Toward the end of the 6.1m day, I could tell he was tired of hiking and wanted to be done. When we got to camp though, he was excited about helping to set up our tent and to start a camp fire. When it got dark, he wanted to go "night hiking" through the camp, so we did that. For being "tired" earlier that day, he sure had a lot of energy once we hit camp.

The second day, I rearranged his backpack to make it a little lighter and insisted he carry it the entire 3.8 miles. He did just fine. The last part of our hike was the best for him. We passed a lot of rock formations and crossed over some streams. We saw a beaver dam and found several deer tracks.

Overall, my son handled the 9.9m weekend backpacking trip pretty well. In hindsight, 9.9m was probably a bit too much, especially the 6.1m on the first day. If you can hike/backpack on a trail that has a lot of "interesting" things to either see or do, that helps. My son also enjoyed "helping" Dad in camp. Letting him get the water or finding wood for the camp fire kept him interested and happy.

Good luck with your trip. Oh, and make sure you take lots of pics with your kids during your trip to relive the memories once you get back home.

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