Backpacking with Kids, the Blooper Edition

As on any hiking trip, not everything went perfectly when we took the boys on a 13 mile overnight Appalachian Trail hike.  We had a few challenges along the way.

This picture made me laugh because Reid looks like he is running frantically from the grazing wild ponies.  It was really just a photobomb.

As you may remember, I had a crazy hiking boot incident recently, and as a result I decided to wear my old tried and true Lowe hiking shoes.  They have always been comfy and fit well, but I hadn't worn them in a couple of years.  Everything started off well enough, but about 1.5 miles into our trek the soles fell off BOTH shoes!  Just FELL OFF!  Turns out they had dry rotted sitting in my closet unused for so long. 

I used duct tape (some borrowed from other hikers, thank you, and some ours) along with some yarn and string to tie things up the best I could. 

We were just barely into our trip - I wasn't sure how hiking the rest of it in my salvaged shoes would go, but I was hoping for the best.

Not 5 minutes after my shoe hack job, I went into a privy and got stung by a bee.  On my butt.  Sorry, no pictures of that!

When we got to the campsite, we discovered that our tried and true water filter was not working correctly.  So it took ages to filter enough water for our hike the following day.  It hadn't been used in a few years either, so perhaps it ran into similar issues as my shoes.

The temps dropped significantly on top of the mountain, and we discovered that somehow Reid's jacket hadn't made it into his pack.  It was nowhere to be found (somehow, it was in another bag in the car).  He borrowed Paul's jacket for the evening.

I brought a really nifty mylar bag set up for making coffee the next morning, but Paul forgot his coffee mug.  He ended up improvising by cleaning out an empty Mountain House meal packet and using that. 

After a lunch break the second day, the boys all had meltdowns.  It seemed that all three of them wanted to be the leader at the same time.  I told Paul that instead of feeding them Cup O' Noodles we must have substituted Cup O' Drama.  I think they were all just feeling tired. 

The hike down the next morning was very rocky, and the improvised shoes only lasted about a mile or so.  I ended up tearing off the soles and hiking down in what remained.  Which was basically like hiking 5 miles over rock in socks.  My feet were a little tenderfooted by the end, but it wasn't so bad as I thought it would be.  Here's my shoes when I got home (they went straight to the trash):

The challenges of backpacking trips like this are actually part of what makes it fun.  You learn to improvise with what little materials you have, and you can make plans for how you can do things better the next time out.  Paul and I were a little rusty since we hadn't backpacked in so many years.  But it is an activity we both love dearly, and now that we know we can take the boys, we hope to have many more trips in the future.  One last thing we learned?  We're a decade older and even though we both are active with running and biking, carrying a backpack up a mountain is a game changer.  We were both very sore the next few days!

Readers, have you ever tried backpacking?