We set out for the first time as a family for an overnight camping trip.
Even Eli carried his own little pack. He carried his sleeping bag and a mini lantern. We carried the rest. He did VERY well! Very pleased with him. No complaining. He kept hiking up the trail to the meadow.
We have hiked to this meadow hundreds of times and know the area quite well. We knew this would be the perfect spot for our first overnighter.
We wanted Eli to look back at his first backpacking trip and remember all the fun he had, so he would want to do this again. He is very motivated by food so we packed lots of snacks and treats to eat along the way.
We took our time and looked at EVERY bug and ant. Eli found a lot! So we stopped. A lot. 🙂
Paul had a wonderful idea to bring the radios. I’m sure glad he did. We had a fun time with them. We each had a hand held radio and we talked on them ALL the way up 🙂
Almost there!
We finally made it to our camping spot. Not quite a mile. Eli did wonderful!
We had to hurry and set up camp. We were worried about the dark clouds that were rolling in.
After the tent was set up, we played lots of games in the tent.
See how tiny our gear is? All that folds out for our sleeping bag, a sleeping mat and a sheet to go over the sleeping mat.
We hiked to the river to pump some water.
Set up the solo stove to start dinner.
Paul lighting the stove.
I wasn’t so sure of this, but it was the only vegetarian pouch Paul could find. Dehydrated lasagna? How good can that be?
This was easy to prepare. Boil water, pour the water into the bag and seal for 20 min. The bag was really hot to the touch. I had a hard time sealing it up because the seal was so hot. We set it on a rock and let it do it’s thing.
After 20 minutes I was sure it was going to be lukewarm. Touching the package even after 20 minutes, was surprisingly hot. When I unsealed the package steam came out.
The lasagna was REALLY good. I would purchase again and keep some around the house for emergencies.
Eli got a kick out of eating in the dirt and on rocks.
After dinner we looked for wildlife. We did spot a deer that came through close to camp.
We played a few games of hide and seek with the radios.
Time for Eli to hide!
Time for bed. I unpacked my bear spray 🙂
Lights out. Literally. The tent had lights. How fun is that!
The following morning, we had an easy breakfast of muffins.
Went for a very short hike around the corner. We have been coming up to the meadow for years, but have never hiked past. So, today was a great opportunity to see what was up there. Unfortunately we didn’t get very far. We needed to head back to camp, pack up, and head out.
Hiking back down.
We will never go on another hike again without the radios. 🙂
It was a fun and successful trip! We are excited for more overnight trips next year.
When we drove into the valley, I had to take a picture of the temperature. 105′! I’m heading back up the mountain where it’s cooler 🙂