Start 'em young:
My 5 year old: "Are we going winter camping? Yeah! So to start packing shall we weigh the stuffies first?"

All the hallmarks of a BPLer in a preschooler: you love to go camping and the first step of packing is weighing your gear and choosing the lightest option!

She has been asking to go winter camping again for a long time. We thought it best to avoid the subzero (F, -18C) temps of last week and pick a mild night.



We left after dinner to minimize potential trouble from a 2yr old eating her supper on her lap.
We just walked into the woods behind the house for a bit and put down pads. I also put up a tarp to block the bright moon a bit and in case of unexpected snow.

Unfortunately my 2 yr old had nightmares or something and was crying super hard at ten o'clock at night, so my wife took her home.

That left my 5 yr old and me. She had a great time. When we woke up (late!) I asked her if she wanted to go home and have pancakes for breakfast, but she said she'd rather eat the sandwiches and fruit we'd brought with us. she also said she wanted to go backpacking again in the summer.

Edited by Tjaard on 01/28/2013 14:32:53 MST.

What a cool little trooper! Good job starting them young.

That's a really tall pack! It's great that you got them out there.

Good for you - I have twin girls who are six and they'd love to go camping in the snow. Sadly, I don't have any experience winter camping and I'm guessing the time for me to learn is NOT when I have them with me.

Still - quite an inspiration. Thanks for posting.

Justin: yeah, that is a big pack from our pre BPL days, made taller by the fact that I didn't open up the internal divider, so the bottom compartment was only half full. Since my wife took our littlest one home in the middle of the night, I attached that one to mine(even taller 90l pack) for the hike home.




Kevin: yeah, might want to get some practice in solo first.

Also you can do stuff like this were we were only ten minutes from home, so if things aren't going well, you can take them home, if you don't happen to live near the woods you could take a motel room that borders on some public land.

After doing this two years in a row, I think I might be ready to take the oldest on an actual backpack a bit further in with on skis. We also picked a very mild night, 16F in the evening, 20 in the morning, very little wind, since I do worry that kids don't always know to add more clothes or cover their face if they get cold at night, I'd avoid the colder dates with the real young ones.

Edited by Tjaard on 01/28/2013 14:37:17 MST.