Backpacking At 6 months old!

I have been stewing over this post for 6 months now!  It is not perfect nor complete, but I am posting it anyway.  There will be a few more follow-up posts on this trip being as it was our "jumping off" point.  So, without further a du......



What comes to your mind when you think of taking your 6 month old child on a five day backpacking trip?  Most would answer this with one word... fear.  Some would speak of concerns that stem from fear, our answer was not any different.  Despite our fears and concerns we took a giant leap of faith and went for the adventure.  

The process of preparation was tedious as we faced the unknowns of what might happen.  Me being the more experienced backpacker was entrusted with the logistics of getting everything, we may need, packed into our seemingly small packs.  Jentri and my sister did what they do best and prepared the meals for everyone.  A lot of our fears were extinguished when my father decided to join in the fun along with his four horses.  The horses meant that we could pack more than just the bare necessities. 

I was considered the "guide" of this excursion being as I had been through this area the most.  Mind you, I had only been there one more time than everyone else, all of whom had never been there at all.  The stress of this responsibility weighed heavily on my mind all through the trip.  I was supposed to know what I was doing, and where I was going!

I am not going to tell you that this trip was easy, or liken it to a walk in the park.  No, it had it's rough parts that pushed each member of the party to their personal limits including the horses.  The horses were plagued by the treacherous landscape and the sharp granite rocks littering the trails.  We all realized we were in it together and with this reassurance relied upon one another to pull through the difficult times.

If I were to go into the nitty gritty details of each and every challenge and how they were overcome then this would turn into a book.  So, with that in mind I will speak of only a few.  Three out of the five days we had to deal with poop blow-outs which required quite a bit of hand washing baby clothes in the cold, high mountain lakes.  With Kylan only being 6 months old we could not put him down on the ground to crawl around in the dirt, unless we were willing to bathe him; this resulted in an extremely spoiled child once we returned home and attempted to resume our routines.  Being as I really did not know the area as well as I had wished I could not reassure everyone that we were getting close on those days we were hiking.  In fact on the worst day we set up camp just shy of my desired destination, which turned out to be alright.

Over all this single trip was the most liberating of any that we have done with our son to this day.  We were able to realize that we really didn't need all of those comforts provided by our home.  It proved to us that we would be able to survive on our own if needs be.  We learned to become flexible, taking trials as they appear and allowing them to pass with minimal attention.  

When someone talks about tackling a huge adventure with their young child the first thing that pops into my mind is "liberation!"  I have a feeling that we will be sharing more about this grand adventure with you in the future.