Camping with Ryder

Some of you may have read in Charity’s Tracking October post Ryder and I got to go backpacking during our vacation in the Shenandoah Mountains last month. It was a blast!

After browsing as many hiking and camping blogs and websites as I could find, I settled on a hike I found on a site called hikingupward.com. First off, this is a great website. They break down all the hikes by a variety of categories as well as talk you through the hike and mention all the best camping spots along the way. They also give you a downloadable route for your GPS if you use one. The hike I selected is called the Camp Hoover or Rapidan Camp hike. It is a 7.6 mile loop starting from a parking area along skyline drive and passing by the retreat of President Hoover which is now a historical landmark of sorts.

The hike features a fairly large waterfall and 3 or 4 river crossings as well as some fairly technical hiking through a rocky section. It isn’t overly steep at any point and the final 2 miles or so are a pretty light downhill section of the Appalachian Trail.

We reached the parking area at about 1 in the afternoon and Ryder promptly strapped on his Captain America shield and I our pack, and we headed off onto the trail. Early excitement was found in climbing every large rock we encountered and searching for the blue trail blaze markings every quarter mile or so to make sure we were going the right way. Before long we encountered our first of several river crossings. This first one was easy enough as a convenient rock bridge was already laid out for us. Although before we could move on we needed to make sure the water really was as cold as it looked. It was.

After two more river crossings we reached Camp Hoover. We were both anxious to head on to where we would eventually camp, but we stayed long enough to examine some of the interesting things around Camp Hoover including an outdoor fireplace and a big bridge high over a river. From here it was about another mile and a half to where we camped for the night. At this point Ryder started to run out of steam and asked me to carry him for a bit (ended up being about half a mile).

Here are the before and after pictures of our campsite. It was about a quarter mile off the trail. Unfortunately, they don’t allow open campfires in the park which would have been a nice addition to our trip, but Ryder took to our tent like a duck to water and as soon as I had it up he jumped inside for a “rest” before dinner. We dined like kings on Mountain House Chicken and Rice which was way more than enough for the two of us with Sour Patch Kids for dessert. Ryder was very concerned that we leave a package of Sour Patch Kids for Rory to have some when we got back. After dinner it was already getting pretty dark so we settled into the tent for the night. Since it was only about 5:30 at this point we played some iphone games for a few hours until we got sleepy and went to bed.

It rained a little bit over night, but the temperature was good inside our sleeping bags and I didn’t hear a peep form Ryder and eventually had to wake him up at about 8am so we could get started on the rest of our hike. We stopped by a stream to top off our water bottles and fill up my camelback to which I added some Mio lemonade which helps take the edge off filtered water and was also good “energy” for Ryder when he got tired. This portion of our hike definitely had some of the most interesting climbing spots and I eventually had to give Ryder the GPS and tell him we couldn’t do any more climbing until we got to the “6”.

At one point Ryder asked if we could take a rest and just laid down on a nearby log. That’s always a good sign that its time to break out the beef jerky and the Sour Patch Kids.

Finally we got to the home stretch, a mile and a half section of the Appalachian Trail which is a gentle downslope and very straight. As we were hiking this section I looked up at one point and saw an average size black bear about 200 yards ahead of us. It took a moment to regard us and then bounded off into the woods. We didn’t hear from it again, but it was a good opportunity to teach Ryder about how animals try to avoid us as much as possible and we should be sure to make lots of noise as we walk so they know we’re coming and we don’t sneak up and scare them. He thought it was all thrilling.

Some tips for anyone who might want to take on a similar adventure:

• Don’t plan on a pace any more than 1 mile an hour without breaks. We were doing about 1.25mph through the easy sections when Ryder had “energy”, but it would slow to .75 or lower during stretches.
• It’s tough to do in some places, but hand holding is great for keeping your pace up.
• Make sure your bring your “A” food game. If the food isn’t good it will ruin the whole trip.
• Rivers are great. If you can incorporate them then do it.
• At Ryder’s age (4) 2.5 miles was about as much as I’d want to do at one time.
• Don’t take it too seriously. There were times where I got annoyed about how slow we were going or how many stops we were taking, but I had to remind myself what the point was (to have fun). Sure we were later than I planned getting back, but it really didn’t matter.

Anyone have camping experiences with their kids or questions? Talk about it in the comments.

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