[pct-l] Hiking with Kids

[Scott Williams]

Hello to the list, and I do love this forum.  Just to add my two cents, I
remember the arguments over taking my daughter, who was under age two, out
kayaking for the first time in the Carquinez Straights.  Big winds and
waves, but warm summer water.  With a baby life jacket sittting between my
legs she was fine, loving the crashing waves and spray the best of all.
Nonetheless I was very very careful, and never put her in danger, even
though lots of folks were sure that I was.  When she was just under 4 she
lived in the forward hatch of a big double baidarka when we spent 2 weeks in
the wilderness of the Bowron Lakes in the Caribou Mtns. of BC.  I had built
a removable rain tent over the hatch which was like a play pen.  She had her
dollies and a baby paddle so she could stay active and feel a part of the
effort, and she loved it.

Her first backpacking was a few years later on our local Skyline to the Sea
Trail, where she carried her clothes in a kindergarten sized backpack and
always had her raggedy ann in her hand as she hiked.  It's been a whole
childhood of similar trips, from the West Coast Trail to the John Muir
Trail, and lots of kayaking as well, and as important as this may have been
for her, it was way more important to me.  I wouldn't trade the memories of
those early trips for anything.  She's off to college now, studying
environmental science and policy at CAL, and loving it.  She leaves me in
the dust on the water and on the trail, but she still loves the outdoors,
and is rooting me on for this seasons PCT.

Whatever you have to do to keep someone so precious safe, I'm sure you'll
do, and in return you'll have the experience of a lifetime with you're
little one.  I wouldn't trade those early trips for the world.

More power to you both.

Scott Williams