Adventure Buddies: Backpacking with a 3 year old

Jul 16 2007

Three weeks ago I launched out on an Adventure Buddies trip with my daughter Kaitlin. I took her backpacking for the first time and she absolutely loved it. We drove up the Mirror Lake Highway into the High Unitas about 90 minutes from where we live and we backpacked 1 mile into Wall Lake.

Did I learn anything from her on this trip? You bet. The mosquitoes were bad on this trip. As bad as I’ve ever seen. We had only hiked 1 mile. If I were alone, I would have bailed. But she wanted to have the ‘sleep over’ part of the trip so bad. So we stayed by the lake in the sun and with our repellent and a slight breeze we were fine for a while. But as evening progressed, they started swarming. Again, we were only 1 mile from the car. But I really wanting to let her experience her first night in the backcountry, so we headed to the tent. I knew we’d be in there for about 3 hours before it was dark enough that she might go to sleep. So we hung out. Took some pictures (she even took one of me with our massive Nikon digital SLR – see below). Told some Dillie-Willie Bird stories. And had some really amazing daddy-daughter time. The next morning, she literally jumped out of her sleeping bag and yelled, “Dad, it’s daytime! It’s time to wake up! We had a sleep over!” And then looked over at me a little bit later and said, “I love you too, dad.”, without me having said anything to her. That’s when my patience all paid off 100 times.

So when on an Adventure Buddies trip with a 3 year old, sometimes you have to be really patient. That’s a lot like business. When you look forward, seems like you’re not moving at all. When you look backwards, you’re completely blown away by how much you or your company has done in the last year. Patience is key. Kids are great, they teach us more than any adult could ever even come close to.

Here are some pictures of our adventure:

starting_off.jpg

k_lake.jpg

k_dad_lake.jpg

k_tent_outside.jpg

k_tent.jpg

jer_tent.jpg

k_and_minnie.jpg

Bookmark and Share

Popularity: 20% [?]

View Comments Filed under Adventure Buddies, General Business, Personal
  • Jess
    this is just great to see......im going backpacking with my 3 yr old daughter after xmas and i just cant wait. we're going through the Daintree, far north qld.... and am researching it as we speak...
  • Awesome entry. I've been wanting to expose my kids to the outdoors, but couldn't quite get the Mrs. to agree... haha perhaps this'll give me and edge this time around.
  • Looks like fun. I've been thinking about taking my 3yr old son backpacking this summer and have been looking for advice, thanks for the tips.
  • Wall Lake is a gem. It's a great lake to take kids to for a short (very short) backpacking trip.
  • I've got to get me a new kid. This one http://www.ponytailclub.com is getting too big to cuddle. (Teenager... I just ain't as cool as I was.)
  • I love to read your Adventure Buddies posts. They are always a reminder to slow down and enjoy the things that have lasting value...like our families. It's interesting the timing of this post...just spent a wonderful weekend camping and backpacking with my 6-month pregnant daughter and my 17-month-old granddaughter. The backpacking didn't go quite as planned. Somehow when you wake a sleeping child, put a backpack on her, and tell her to walk in the sun...yeah, doesn't work well! I was actually planning on e-mailing you to ask how early you started backpacking with your daughter. Your post gave me the answer! Thanks! :D
blog comments powered by Disqus

Copyright © Jeremy Hanks, All Rights Reserved