Tips on Backpacking With Your Baby

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PHOTO: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF
While one set of diapers dries en route, Nate gaily balance his treasured tiger cup on Becky's head.

By using these helpful tips on backpacking with your baby you can prepare to go backpacking with your baby at almost any age.

“I love to go a-wandering, a baby on my back” was not the way “The Happy Wanderer” began his famous hiking song . . . and no wonder! At first thought, the idea of lugging–and coping with–an infant or toddler (along with all one’s gear) on a backpacking trip would seem to be enough to discourage any wilderness traveler from joyously singing “Valderee! Valderaa!”

However, if you’re the parent of a young child, love the outdoors, and are willing to be pretty darned adaptable, you and yours can have a very pleasurable walking adventure when backpacking with your baby. In fact, my wife Becky and I carted our 18month-old toddler Nathan (also known as “Nate”, “Naterbug”, “Buggie”, or simply “The Bug”) on a four-day hike last year . . . and found that–diapers and all–it was one of the most rewarding family experiences we’d ever had!

BACKPACKING DAY ONE

We planned a short 21-mile hike–in North Carolina’s Shining Rock Wilderness–which would allow us to have a leisurely experience and not force us to push ourselves. (The ground rule was to put our energy into being there, not into getting there.) Becky and I also decided to set out during the warm, sunny days of late spring and plotted our route to go up a steep hollow, all the way around its perimeter, and then back down the same center trail . . . guaranteeing that, if worst came to worst, we’d never be more than a few miles away from our car.

  • Published on Jul 1, 1982
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