We took our very first family backpacking trip this last monday. I have been crazy about backpacking solo over the last 5 or 6 year's. It's not easy for me to describe the feeling I get being alone in the wilderness but it stirs something deep inside me that I wouldn't know is their if I hadn't taken these trip's. Gives me a connection with this world , with life, with myself that I rarely if ever get. This last trip was all that times ten. Being isolated in the wood's with my my beautiful wife and 3 entergetic , crazy cute little kid's was freaking great! The hike in was a little tuff but went farely smooth. Sloan wore our Kelty child toting pack with her sleeping bag and a couple other small items but little Josie isn't exactly that little anymore. Plus Josie wasn't a very willing passanger, that combined with the sandy as hell trail up Short Creek forced us to change the game plan. We drug , pulled and pushed her along to camp. Johnny Bo and Chubb's were good and wore out but did a great job and made it to camp no problem. It was early afternoon when we arrived so we dropped our pack's and jumped right into the running water and dark cool grass. The kid's stripped down and took to their surrounding's like they had been livin natural all along. They climbed little waterfall's, caught tadpoles and toad's and swam in the shallow water. Jett told me 3 times in the first couple hour's that this was the best day ever. I couldn't argue.... it was pretty damn good. Sloan and I set up camp while the kid's continued playing and afterwords we cooked up a tasty little dinner over the fire. It was a beautiful clear night with no wind and almost a full moon. The iceing on the cake was that we had the canyon all to ourselves. Everybody had smiles on the there face's as we climbed into the 2 small tent's. Their was no getting around it. I was in HEAVEN. Getting a 2 , 5 and 7 year old up a couple miles of sandy trail wasn't exactly easy but way more than worth it.
( it wont let me flip that pic of Josie dangit )
