Orange, New Hampshire – I love to hike, but everybody knows that I do not know how to camp. And I certainly don’t know how to live out of my backpack for more than a few hours at a time. This summer, Daddio and I are busy finishing our book, so we sent the twins to learn about hiking and camping and backpacking with the Appalachian Mountain Club. This was a very conscious decision. I wanted to my kids to learn from experts and to avoid mishaps. The goal was for them to have a great experience and relish the adventure and fall in love with living in the great outdoors.
We signed the twins up for a week at Mount Cardigan. A friend joined them, so they each had two built-in buddies. Although there is a lodge on site, the teens camped out away from the lodge. They slept in tents and cooked on camp stoves and skipped bathing (from what I could tell). They spent their days hiking and canoeing and doing trail maintenance. The week culminated in a hike to the summit of Mount Cardigan, where they slept in a hut and then descended the next day.
Alas, it rained while the twins were at camp. Every. Single. Day. Daddio and I were at home, eyeing the skies and watching our weather apps. Of course we lamented the bad weather. But I, for one, was supremely grateful that the twins were under the care of the Appalachian Mountain Club. Presumably, the fearless AMC leaders would show them how to stay dry in their tents and start fires in the rain and wear their rain gear–and anything else you need to know to survive foul-weather camping.
When we picked the twins up at the end of the week, they were waterlogged, but happy. They had slept in soggy tents all week, protected only by the sleeping pads that elevated them one inch off the wet ground. They brought home bags of marshmallows, because they never had a fire to roast them. They did wear their rain gear, which was a small miracle. Other than that, the main thing they learned–it seemed– was to relish the adventure, raindrops and all.
And–glory halleluiah–the sun came out on the last day, when they climbed to the summit of Mount Cardigan. This is our only photographic evidence from the week, so maybe they won’t remember that it rained all week. But I hope they remember what they learned from it.
