Hints for hiking with children

Want to take your children on hikes? Don't wait until they are "old enough" whatever that means. Haul them along in a baby carrier, take your four-year-old by the hand, tell him or her they are a great hiker, and see what happens. If don't take your children hiking until they are nine or ten, you may have lost the battle. Our little 4-year-old Pickle boy hiked 6 miles with no problem. He wasn't sore afterward like I was. But he has been on many hikes before, and usually got carried a lot until he was about 3. I wouldn't take children on any hike along sheer cliffs (ie, Angel's Landing in Zions), but there are many great hikes for children. Our three oldest are mountain goats, and we usually have to make them hike slower, since Pickle can't keep up. Ok, I'll admit I can't keep up either.

Anyway, you'll have the inevitable meltdown, with a child sobbing on the side of the trail, but since there is usually no way to get out except by hiking out, they will eventually have to stop crying and start hiking. Sometimes we don't get the "stop crying" part of that, and we'll have a crying hiker sobbing as she staggers down the trail. Until she sees something interesting, or figures out that we won't carry her.

Afterward, print out the pictures and put them in the child's album, and they'll forget the sobbing part, and proudly show how they hiked 6 miles, or whatever.