Greetings from Garabaldi - our first family backpack camping adventure.

All summer we have been talking about "The Big Hike" with the kids. Every time we went running or biking we told them it was good training for The Big Hike. We bought or borrowed all the camping gear and watched every single episode of Bear Grylls' You vs. Wild so we now we were totally ready.

Several times leading up to the trip, I had a terrifying thought that this was a really bad idea and that there was no way the kids could hike that far with back packs but I pushed out those thoughts and bought more gummy candies instead so we would be prepared to combat any possible tiredness with copious amounts of sugar.

And they made it!

5:45 am Saturday morning Aug 24, our alarms went off and we put our heavy backpacks in the car. They were loaded with just the essentials - the tent, sleeping bags, the food, head lamps and of course giant Beanie Boo dragons and a stuffed leopard. 

Shortly after 8:00 am, we were headed up and for at least three hours, it was just steep switchbacks straight up....we kept the kids distracted by hunting for the perfect hiking stick and playing endless rounds of "I Spy", rhyming games, guessing games and scavenger hunts. We were pleasantly surprised how little candy we had to dispense to keep them trekking up the mountain. They were happy to find spiderwebs for 200 points and chipmunks for 1000 points. They even found the Super Mario mushroom for 4000 points.

 I was surprised how well maintained and popular that trail was.....not a lot of 5 and 8 year olds hiking up but there was a constant traffic of people passing by and giving the kids high 5's and lots of encouragement along the way. According to my Garmin, it took us 4 and half hours to hike 10.25 km from the parking lot to our campsite at Taylor Meadows. It also says the elevation gain was 1,312. Wow. And we haven't even made it to the Lake yet.

We found 2 campsites side by side at Taylor Meadows. We set up our tents and ditched some of weight from our packs and hiked onward to Garibaldi Lake. The second part only took an hour and the 2.6 km to the Lake was pretty easy compared the never-ending uphill of switchbacks. And it was well worth it.

The lake was beautiful and we captured some amazing shots.

We found a spot where people had stacked up some amazing inuksuk and Little Brother Bear was able to stack 3 more rocks on without having it tip over.

 We had a snack break and we were suddenly surrounded by chipmunks. Maybe the chipmunks knew that kids get spill just as much food on the ground as they get in their mouths because I didn't see any other groups of people inundated by chipmunks...

It was too cold to swim in the glacier water. There were some brave souls that were swimming but we were happy to just put our fingers in....all of us, except for my Dad who had a closer encounter with the lake than he was planning for. It really is Husband's fault. He found a log that was just under the water so it looked like he was walking on water. It was a pretty epic shot. My Dad, of course not wanting to miss a fantastic photo opportunity trekked out to the water by the rocks too... unfortunately, the rock he stepped on was not a steady one. He stepped into the lake to regain his balance but alas that rock was also tipsy and he fell backwards into the water I wish we had it on camera.  Now *that* would have been an even more epic picture.

 Fortunately he was not hurt, just very wet and all his extra clothes were back at the campsite. He took off his wet socks and he coped by wearing Ziploc bags as socks. He was a great sport about it, it was a great teaching opportunity about being flexible. That was probably the most memorable part of the hike. 

The only other part of the hike that did not go as planed was with Little Brother Bear. Poor guy had been pushed pretty hard that day and by 5:00 pm , he was just completely done. He was starving, exhausted and wanted to go to sleep right on the rocks. We cooked up the freeze dried macaroni as fast as we could...I know camping food isn't supposed to be 5 star gourmet but the mac and cheese was pretty terrible. The sauce was runny and soupy and the noodles were chewy. I had a hard time eating it myself so I don't blame the poor kid for not wanting to eat it. He begrudgingly ate some soupy mac and cheese and some mediocre freeze-dried spaghetti and said he wanted to go to sleep. It wasn't even 6:00 pm yet. We started the hike back to the campsite and he said he was too tired and his tummy hurt. SuperDadHusband carried him on his shoulders back to the campsite and steps away from the campsite, he leaned over and started puking up the less than stellar dinner.

We carried him back to the campsite with him still moaning that his tummy hurt. He lay down on his camping pillow inside the tent and was almost asleep in 30 seconds. I asked him to drink some water before he went to sleep and as soon as he sat up in the tent, my 'mom 6th sense' kicked in and I was able to pick him up like a burrito in his sleeping bag, unzip the tent and get his head just outside the tent before he puked again. *Phew* Close call. I did not want to sleep in a pukey tent. 

For a second I was worried he might have appendicitis or some terrible stomach disease and would have to be air-lifted off the mountain. It was good that my sister's room mate is a nurse and she was able to check him and assure me that he was just a really exhausted little boy. He fell asleep before 7 pm. Actually, we all went to bed before it was even dark that night.

My Little Bear woke up at midnight, a bit dazed and confused asking for his glow stick. I had let the kids choose special glow sticks for our hiking trip and I had promised them that at night time, we could play with them in the dark. But because we all went to bed before it was even dark, we never opened the glow sticks. He was a bit sleepy and delirious and kept on asking for his glow stick and I was trying to whisper quietly that there is no point to get the glow sticks now because everyone is sleeping and its 12:30 am. It took a bit of hushed negotiation but I convinced him to stop asking for the glow stick and go back to sleep.

It was not a stellar sleeping on my 20 year old foam mat from when I was in Girl Guides and without a pillow. Plus there was a person who shall remain unnamed that snores like a Grizzly Bear and I spent the night trying to cover my ears and bury my head inside my sleeping bag.... but who actually sleeps well when you are backpack camping right ?  At least we made room for essentials like stuffed dragons.

After pulling our food back down to ground from the food cache, we fired out my sister's Jetboil for a nice warm oatmeal breakfast, Little Bear found the perfect hiking stick and SuperDad taught him out to use a knife and carve it. Little Bear said that was his favourite part of the whole trip.

We packed up our tent and made the 7.8 km trek back down in about two and half hours. I thought going downhill would be a piece of cake but it was actually harder than I though with all the weight in my pack. SuperDadHusband had the most weight though, he graciously so much stuff I could barely lift his pack off the ground...never mind carry it all the way back down.
The best part celebrating with my Dad as he crossed our make-shift 'finish line' at the bottom. Pretty special to have both the youngest 5 year old and the oldest  65+ year old both complete the trip still smiling at the bottom!

So the big question is....will we do this again ? Panorama Ridge? Black Tusk ? Elfin Lakes? 

If I can just get a decent pillow and some ear plugs....it's game on.