Who says you cannot take a 4 year old backpacking?

With a lot of patience, plenty of time and very few miles to travel, I found it is entirely possible. On Friday, Jack and I set out on the Missouri Lakes Trail in an attempt to make it to the lower lake, which is about 3.5 miles. Jack carried a kid sized backpack that held his water, fleece, rainjacket and whistle. I found that due to the amount of water on the trail, Jack was far better off wearing Sandals while hiking up hill but really needed shoes on the downhill. I had given him the whistle with strict instructions to only blow the whistle if he was lost and could not see his Daddy. He took this literally and waited for me to get far enough ahead and out of site for hme to start blowing. Therefore I told him about the little boy who cried wolf and morphed the story into the little boy who blew his whistle. I think he got the moral but now that I think about it, I should have just let him blow that whistle to his hearts content. Anyway, we spent about 3 hours on the trail when Jack reached his limit and I had run out of stories (which seemed to distract him enough to keep moving forward), so we found a nice little campsite which I believe was about 2.5 miles from the trailhead. Once we got into camp, Jack helped me setup the tent, kitchen tarp, get water, cook dinner, start a small campfire and Bear Bag. Jack thought the freeze dried spaghetti dinner was simply outstanding and even wanted seconds. I wasnt sure if he just really loved it or was just so hungry that he would have eaten Dirt.




Unfortunately, i started drifting off before the stars really came out so we got ready for bed a before it got dark, I read a little from the current book in my backpack, (Part of Robinson Carusoe. I only had a portion of the book as I had ripped it in half on a previous trip to save weight and the first couple of chapters ended up in a campfire somewhere in the Maroon Bells last year). However, he was more interested in wrestling than reading, he must have gotten a second wind. Although the temperature dropped quite a bit Friday night, I think he slept just fine wearing his winter PJ's inside Tiffany's sleeping bag (which I had tied knot about 3' from the bottom to make it kid size). I think he was pretty bummed as we broke camp Saturday Morning and prepared to walk out. Next time, we will have to go for two or more nights but I will definitely want to bring a second adult unless I am able to grow eyes in the back of my head.