Why are we actually doing this, Dad?

The only time we ever slept in a tent.  Didn't want the little crawler to wander off in the middle of the night. Yes, we carried out ALL the diapers.

Parents tell me that they would love to hike, or bike, or go on river trips, but they have to wait until the kids are told enough.  Robbie never had that choice.  When he was little, he was popped into a front pack, then a backpack, then hauled along on his wee little legs.

Maybe this is why he doesn't hike now.

I carried him until he was three.  The forty-pound pack wasn't so bad, it was the fact that the pack jumped up and down yelling, "Are we there yet?" For about a year he stayed with Grandma Marji while we hiked, but he first climbed out of Grand Canyon by himself when he was four and a half.  Took all day, but we did it.

18 months old, climbing Mt. Harvard

blueberry tongues at Looit Trail in Oregon

The baby pack: a modified kid carrier attached to a real frame pack.

Any port in a blizzard  This is the outhouse at Cedar Ridge.

Airing out the baby.

A gal on Mt Adams asked me where I found good hiking clothes for a twerp.  They are out there if one knows where to look, and I sewed a lot of them, like Robbie's raincoat.

A trifle unsteady going up Camelback Mountain