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[pct-l] Teach Your Children



I've been enjoying the introductions as well. Very interesting group of 
people. Like the humor some of you inject.

I have always insisted in taking my kids with me. I hiked/backpacked in the 
Cascades and Olympic NP with my two girls when I lived in Washington. I took 
my son on his first backpacking adventure to Big Bend NP when he was just 
two, with my oldest daughter. So much for lightweight! I carried him in his 
Kelty pack/carrier, along with our tent, and most of our camp supplies & 
water. It was just a two day trip, but boy did it get me in shape! He was 
only about two months old when he experienced his first night in a tent. 
Some day I hope to take him back to Washington, where he was born, to climb 
up to see the source of his middle name, the Emmons Glacier on Mt. Rainier.

My approach to teaching kids to appreciate the wildnerness is pretty much 
the same as teaching them to love books. Avoid forcing it on them, but make 
sure they are surrounded by it. All three kids were introduced to both 
before they could utter a word.

A lot of you on the list know me from my previous stint on here. I had a 
pause after going through a divorce two years ago. Kind of distracted for a 
while :-)   This second time around I have been mostly lurking, but really 
enjoying it. My poor hotmail account can barely keep up with all the recent 
messages...Anyway for all you who don't know me, I am the editor of the much 
neglected ezine, hikethewild.com. I got interested in thru-hiking after 
interviewing a gentleman who did the AT. I subscribed to this list to find 
out more about the PCT. Hiking it is on my list of top 25 things to 
accomplish in my life. I fell in love with Washington while I lived out 
there and the parts of Oregon that I saw, so I figured this would be the 
long trail for me. In a sense taking me back home. I had originally hoped to 
hike it next summer or the summer after, but I'm still rebuilding after the 
big D. I currently live in San Antonio, a long way from my beloved mountains 
:-(  People are much more into eating than getting outside. We are one of 
the top fattest cities in the nation. Quite a change after the PNW REI 
crowd. Plan to at least make it back to Big Bend this March. I'm leading a 
ladies only backpacking trip. Wow, a dream come true! Getting paid to 
backpack!!!

I grew up in Ohio and experienced camping and hiking growing up, but did not 
experience backpacking or the mountains until I was 20. My ex and I did a 6 
week drive across the country; from Ohio to California and back in a Chevy 
Sprint. We stopped in Glacier for an overnight backpacking trip then drove 
up to Banff for a four day trip I will never forget. We hiked through the 
gorgeous Pulsatilla Pass, lost the trail somewhere on the other side, coming 
out a few miles away from where we needed to be, and experienced hitching 
for the first time. A couple who had flown up "just for the weekend" picked 
us up in an expensive rental car and didn't even wrinkle their noses from 
the smell of us!

Well, this is getting lengthier than I had planned. Ya'll visit my site and 
drop me a line off list if you have any article ideas. Meanwhile I'll sit 
back and enjoy reading about your adventures and advice until that day I can 
join you on the trail.

Gina Acord
(planning on using the trail name Earth Woman, my boyfriend's nickname for 
me.)


>From: Bighummel@aol.com
>To: pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net
>Subject: [pct-l] Teach Your Children
>Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 11:55:15 EST
>
>Keep the introductions coming.  It is good to hear of your hiking roots and
>how the concept of the PCT came to grow in your mind.
>
>One of the themes that I am catching from the many introductions is that
>many/most found their love of hiking and camping in their youth, as 
>children.  I
>thank my parents for this introduction to the wilderness and its virtues 
>and,
>of course, I am trying to pass it on to my children.
>
>I enjoy taking them to some of the fantastic spots in the Sierra and in the
>Channel Islands and other great places and they look forward to the next 
>one
>and now are getting into the planning.  I look forward to my first 
>overnight
>campout with my 3 1/2 year old daughter and she bugs me about this 
>constantly as
>she missed going hiking with her older brothers this summer.
>
>I hope that one of them will follow in my footsteps, or better yet hike 
>side
>by side with me along the PCT again!  I know that this is a vain hope and 
>that
>they will do what they find to love and not what I try to teach them to 
>love.
>
>
>Greg Hummel
>"Strider"
>
>"To the Backpacker time and place have no meaning.  Independent and
>self-sustaining he is his own master.  That is the joy of backpacking.  
>Wandering where
>and when he wishes, darkness finds him "everywhere at home.""
>                                              Clinton C. Clarke in "The
>Pacific Crest Trailway" 1943
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