Welcome to paradise - hiking and backpacking as a family

Interested in finding new outdoor adventures as a family?

We’ve been hiking as a family for close to two years! Our boys are 8 and 10 now and do much better on the trails than we do!

When a friend of mine told me at the beginning of the lockdown that we had over 78 miles of hiking trails around us, I knew we had to go explore!

We started out just exploring around the neighborhood, then we went a little further, wandered into the next neighborhood. We live on top of a hill, so we can see far around us. We walked through the town to a hill we could see on the other side, we walked to the parks near us, we walked to the community pool, we climbed on all the hills that surrounded us. We discovered the Alltrails app, the trailhead parking lots opened again, and we started exploring further and further. We had found a new way to live exciting adventures and spend quality time in nature together.

We went on trips and hikes in the Swiss Alps, around Death Valley, in the Grand Canyon, around Lake Powell, and Zion National Park. We hiked in the desert, on mountains, in rivers, in wide open spaces, in narrow canyons, and in beautiful green forests.

Every hike was a reward, an accomplishment, something we were proud of as a family! Food for the soul! Unforgettable memories for all of us! After every hike we had the satisfaction of “this beautiful memory is ours, no one can ever take it from us!” I made tons of photo albums capturing all the beautiful places we visited and moments we lived.

I started looking for more and more beautiful places to visit and found one that especially caught my attention – Havasupai. It was so amazing I couldn’t wait to get a permit and was super excited when I finally did. However, I felt like we weren’t prepared enough for this one. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for us), due to COVID, they haven’t been able to open the trail to the public yet. We are still waiting to go. I know it is a longer and more strenuous hike than what we have been doing, and therefore we are grateful for the extra time we are getting to improve our skills and endurance, and give the boys a year to grow older.

It was challenging to find out what to pack, how much, when we needed what. Our daypacks seemed too heavy, and we weren’t always carrying the right things. We had too much water and not enough food when hiking near rivers, and too many snacks but limited amounts of water when hiking steep mountains and hot deserts. We learned with every hike, but I always felt I could do better, pack smarter, optimize, learn more.

We found a course through the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Basic Course (WBC), which we were so excited to attend at the beginning of this year. It was truly amazing and just what we needed! My husband and I both learned a lot.

We participated in the WBC’s 50-hike challenge and completed half of those discovering so much more of the beautiful nature surrounding us. We hiked 40 trails and 130 miles in 2021, which was a huge accomplishment for us. We went on four backpacking outings with the WBC group: first a car camp in the desert, then a backpacking trip to the desert, then a backpacking trip to the mountains, and finally a backpacking trip to the snow. All amazing experiences helping us learn and get ready to take our kids on an overnight trip. We finally did that end of March this year.

Our very first family backpacking trip took us to Eagle Rock on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)! What an awesome experience! We couldn’t wait to get more. Our next trip took us to Catalina Island where we set up camp for two nights and did an amazing day hike with incredible ocean views. Of course, now more miles on the PCT and the Trans-Catalina-Trail are on our top To-Do list. More adventures to come in Southern California, but first we have our annual trip to Switzerland coming up soon, with several hikes in the Alps!

Of course we are still no experts but we are very proud of our newly acquired skills, and so happy to have been blessed with discovering the beauty of nature in a different way! Can’t wait to see more!

The past two years have been absolutely amazing. There have been steep, hot, dusty ascends, incredible views from mountain tops, breathtaking desert and ocean views, amazing sunsets and sunrises, beautiful camp spots, amazing new friends, fluffy but dangerous teddy bear cholla, scary rattle snake encounters, unpleasant runs from bees, and so much more.

I love being in nature and taking my kids and our doggy out! Can’t imagine more peace and happiness than on the trails!

It’s crazy to think back and realize how much we have grown and learned. Looking back in life, we will regret much more what we haven’t done than what we have done! So let’s not miss anything!

Happy trails everyone!

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