My kids (7, 7 and 9 years of age) are pretty standard suburbanites, with school, scouting, involvement in sports and a nearly insatiable interest in television and video games. At times I start to believe they would starve if we didn't interrupt their Xbox play for meals. On a few occasions I have replied to the statement of "I'm booooooored" with, "how about a hike?" Nearly without fail, the answer is a resounding "NO!!!"

I know they like hikes. I have been on many hikes with them. It's the Xbox inertia that must be overcome. When the protests persist to the point where a hike is suddenly no more palatable to me than a trip to the dentist, I relent to the physics of Xbox. One day I had the ludicrous idea to question their resistance to the idea of an outdoor adventure. The response at first seemed equally ludicrous, but upon reflection, I understood what they meant. The response was, "we never go ANYWHERE!" Huh? That's the whole idea behind a hike, right? What they meant was that the destination didn't appeal to them. They did not feel we DID anything when we got there. We just hike in and hike out.

The answer: backpacking. My friends with kids thought I was nuts, and rightly so, but I was so determined to expose my kids to nature that I was willing to undergo a little torture.

I endeavored to take them on an overnight to Mirror Lake by Mt Hood in our beautiful home state of Oregon.  The big challenge was how I was going to get all the gear up there.  Granted, the trail to Mirror Lake is short, and the climb easy to moderate, but I would be shouldering a 50 pound pack.  I decided the weight would not deter me.  The problem became how would I cram it all into my backpack?  But cram I did, and it all fit with a bit of organizational wizardry and brute force.  I am also blessed with a spouse who knew of my love for the outdoors and bestowed upon me a massive frame pack as a wedding present. 

The kids were excited. I was apprehensive. The weather closed in. Nothing was going to stop me. We arrived at the trailhead to a steady, light, cold drizzle. I was prepared for complaints about the weather, and even turning back, but the kids were eager to keep going. As we climbed up the trail, I made sure to include lots of breaks for snacks and pictures in various ridiculous poses. So far, only one whiner, and we were getting close to the lake. The number of whiners grew from one to two, and then to three, but within minutes, we arrived at the lake. Everyone was quite relieved, but for different reasons.

I made sure we had no competition for campsites by arriving early. We arrived at 11:00 AM. We moved to a campsite and I dropped my absurdly heavy pack. The site was well used, and had many amenities not often afforded a backcountry campsite, like a pre-existing fire ring and a wooden bench. I was delighted. So were the kids. I set up camp and suggested we go explore the lake. "NO!!!" was the reply, amplified by all three voices. "We want to stay here" was their addendum that rang eerily of those horror movies with children expressing an ominous collective will, or equally eerily, the Borg. "Oooo kaaay," I replied tentatively. I knew my next suggestion would be a winner, although I was hesitant to pull that card so early. "How about we build a fire?" I offered. Jubilance ensued, and I can only dream that one day they clean their rooms the way they cleaned the forest floor of anything that might burn. And so began my occupation for the next several hours. With the help of a little stove fuel, I got a nice fire started with the damp wood. Periodically I received reports that the fire was dying. I sent them off on a hunt for more wood, but they began to tire of this, so the task fell to me. You might be asking, "why didn't you just let the fire die and go fishing or do something relaxing down by the lake?" Silly you. I had to range farther and farther away from the campsite in search of more wood, and I could still hear their distant warnings that the fire was about to die echoing through the woods.

Lakes are fantastic destinations with kids. There is plentiful wildlife and scenery, and if all else fails, there is fishing and throwing stuff into the lake. Mirror Lake is no exception, and once I finally coaxed the kids away from the campsite to the lake, they were thrilled by what they saw.

“WHAT is THAT?!?!” exclaimed Grace. “Oh, that’s a crayfish,” I replied. Between crayfish, a den of rabbits, gardener snakes, an eagle fishing for trout and zillions of water striders, the kids were well entertained. I spent time snapping pictures of them and the scenery, and before I knew it dinner time was upon us.

There is no accounting for the planning involved with this little adventure. Some things were simply planned failures, mitigated by grandiosely successful plans, or so it seemed in my head. Our sleeping arrangements fell under the planned failure category.

I’ll come clean and admit I am a colossal cheapwad, and as such, I spent as little money as possible for this trip. I knew my tent was not big enough for all of us, but that’s because it had obviously been spec’d by someone who lacked my creativity, motivated by a dire drive to not spend a dime to buy a bigger tent, unless not spending money now led to having to spend MORE money down the road. You know, the whole motivation for not skipping a mortgage payment here and there. I positioned the kids such that all three of them and my big cheap ass could just barely fit. Somehow I managed to get a good night’s sleep, as did the kids.

Glory be if the next morning wasn’t in stark defiance of all the Portland meteorologists’ forecasts! A beautiful, warm sunny day greeted my blurred, uncorrected vision, so I knew that breaking camp and hiking back out would be a breeze. It was all downhill from here, but as it turned out, that was only in the literal sense. Three young kids woke up on the starving side of the Therm-a-rest pad, and my highest priority became preparing everyone’s oatmeal. Luckily I had instituted a forced march down to the creek that feeds the lake to get water the previous evening. In no time, I had 3 sticky, smiling kids, and the day was off to a good start.

With a new fondness for nature and all its wonders, we bid farewell to Mirror Lake and began the hike back to the car. I felt great because all the potential meltdowns and disasters were behind us. Nobody is in a bad mood going downhill.

Within a short enough distance to still be in sight of the lake, my son succumbed to his emotions (or something) and hatched a meltdown. I found that my patience for this was lacking due to my expectation that all would be well, and all would be happy. I attempted to ignore the outburst of my son and continue calmly down the trail. We embarked upon a battle of wills. My will was to continue, and my son’s was to stubbornly hold his ground where the meltdown broke forth. Knowing that I could not leave him that far behind, I conceded, and I returned to him in an attempt to elicit the etiology of the fuss. With less than the patience I would have wanted to have, I demanded to know what the problem was. He would not yield. Expelling the air forcefully from my lungs in a sign that I was displeased, I tried to calmly ask what he needed in order to continue. Determined reticence was all I got. Frustrated, I again walked away. As I rounded the bend, I could see him start to follow, head hung down in defeat. “That wasn’t so bad,” I said to myself. As I rounded the next bend to catch up to the girls, I found my older daughter sitting down, head hung low like her brother’s. “I’m tired” was the self-diagnosis. Reminding her that it was all downhill, and that it shouldn’t tire her out too much didn’t have the desired results. I took her little backpack and suggested she try again without the load, which precipitated meltdown number two from my son. It appeared he didn’t want to carry his backpack either. After some initial protesting on my part that the packs were so light, and shouldn’t cause them much effort, I realized I just wasn’t getting anywhere with it. I slung his pack as well. By the time we reached the car, multiple additional meltdowns had come and gone, and I was silently seething, which slowly gave way to relief having made it back to the car.

You have now learned how to get ‘em out there to appreciate the wonders of the natural world, but hopefully you also learned from my experience something more significant and valuable. No matter how good your plan is, and no matter what your expectations are, your kids will express their will to be who they are and to do it their own way. The best you can hope for is that you have been a good leader, and have exposed to them to situations where they can grow in whatever way they choose. You may hope that their goals and desires align with yours, and one day that could very well be true. Just be sure to recognize incongruences in their expression of their goals and desires as growth toward what you may have wanted. What that means to me is being patient and allowing my kids the freedom to experience THEIR world THEIR way. Easier said than done, so wish me luck.