The Joint Trail, Canyonlands National Park, Utah

     It's been years since I've posted. I don't know if I even remember how!! I had a baby I took camping last time and then another surprise joined our family in 2015! So now we are a family of 8!! I never thought I would have so many kids!  We've still been camping, I just haven't been writing about it. Camping is really the only thing we can afford to do with so many of us!!

     Last fall I had the hair brained idea that I wanted to get out and backpack again!! It had been more than 10 years since I had been out with everything I needed on my back into the woods.  So my friend Karen and I cooked up the idea of taking our oldest girls on their first backpacking trip.  S and A are both 10 years old.  Karen's oldest E, is 9 years old.  They are all pretty good hikers.  They had a Friday off school at the end of September so we decided to go for it.  Karen had hiked The Joint trail years ago and thought it would be a good place to take beginners.  The Joint Trail is in the Needles Section of Canyonlands National Park about an hour from Moab, Utah.

     We convinced my parents to join us for extra support and let's be honest, to help carry the weight, haha!!  In my mind I pictured walking on an established trail in the desert through miles of sage brush! Boy was I wrong. I'm glad my girls are so tough or this trail would have destroyed them.  It was up and down, over and through with more elevation change than I ever expected as we traversed through canyons and washes.  It was the prettiest place I think I have ever seen! I love desert camping! I feel at home around red rock and sandstone!
     We started in the Elephant Canyon parking lot and took the Elephant Canyon trail into Kesler Park.  It was about 3.5 miles from the parking lot to our first camp site.  We spent three days and two nights camping.  The first night we stayed in Kesler Park Campsite #1.  It was definitely the prettiest campsite in the area.  In the future I think I would try and reserve that spot for all the nights we are there.  In the morning we picked up and moved to Campsite #5 to stay for a night.  Ideally we wouldn't have had to move to another campsite, but we planned this trip late and didn't have many camping options.

 



















    We spent a day hiking The Joint. The Joint is about a mile long slot canyon that you can hike through.  It's like God took a pie cutter and cut waffle marks in the rock. There are side canyons branching off in perpendicular directions.  We had so much fun exploring all the canyons we could fit through.  There was one crack the kids explored that I couldn't even squeeze into.  They had a riot!!
     My favorite part of the trip was leaving my busy, harried, anxiety ridden life behind for 4 days.  It's such relief to only worry about your basic needs for 4 days.  Do we have enough food and water? Will we stay dry if it rains? Are we warm enough? I left drama home. No worrying about if the cleanliness of my house is tolerable, or if I'm going to make it to the carpool in time, or if so and so is going to eat his dinner or choose to go to bed hungry.  We had some awesome meals.  There's a reason why we like to bring Karen the gourmet cook on our adventures!!   Life is so simple when backpacking.  The food tastes so good, the water satisfies so much more, and the clean up is so quick!!
     Overall, the best part was spending 4 days and 3 nights of uninterrupted time with my girls, my parents, and Karen and her daughter.  We played card games, went exploring, and enjoyed the scenery.
     I'm hoping to revive the blog and be more regular in posting from now on. I hope to start by posting more details about this trip: including, menus, pack lists, gear reviews, etc.  Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions and I can hopefully address them!!

Capitol Reef National Park in May

I was so excited and did so well at posting on this blog until I got pregnant and sick and winter hit, so it's been almost a year. Sorry, but life goes on and the Hansens get out camping again eventually! This weekend was our new baby's first camping adventure. He's 2 1/2 months old and the perfect age for camping. Ideally he'd be sleeping through the night by now, but we survived. He's not the hard one, the hard one is the two year old, and he's not hard during the actual camping, he's hard on the drive to and from.  So we just try to stay a little closer to home.

We sure live in an outdoor lover's paradise here in Utah. This weekend we decided to try out Capitol Reef National Park.  It's a little over 2 hours off the main highway, so it was not nearly as crowded as some of the others like Zion's or the Grand Canyon, but I think it was equally as stunning.  With river hikes, dry river bed slot canyons, desert landscapes, petroglyphs, historic sites, and beautiful picnic areas, we will definitely go back.

We left early Friday morning and got to the park by lunch time. The campground was full, but we had a tip on a little dirt road called Sulfur Creek Road just east of the town of Torrey where we just threw down for the night.  I would advise taking a good tent as the wind is usually ripping through these desert areas.  We had a hard time getting our stakes into the sandstone, though a pop up tent would do fine.

These are the bigger kids hiking Hickman Bridge, poor B was a little outnumbered by the ladies, but he stole a pink hat to feel more a part of the clan.

After a quick lunch we hiked to Hickman Bridge.  It's about a mile from the parking lot to the natural bridge. It was beautiful and you actually hike through the middle of it and around a little loop.  My four year old did great and walked the whole way.

After the hike we crashed at the picnic area in the park. It's beautiful and grassy with shade trees and access to a little stream where the kids threw rocks and played in the mud. My two year old went for a little swim on accident, but it was warm enough we just dressed him down to his diaper and he continued romping around.  After playing in the water we ate dinner and watched as the deer and turkeys came grazing through the grassy areas. I won't admit to it, but maybe the kids had fun chasing the wildlife around. The poor tourists who had never seen a deer before, they were out of luck after our visit.

The nice part about camping on Sulfur Creek Road was that we had the place to ourselves and had no one driving past in the middle of the night and it was quiet. My kids could cry or be loud all night long and only keep us up.

Saturday morning we cooked our eggs in boiling water in ziplock sandwich baggies, loaded up everything and went back into the park. This time we explored the Grand Wash.  We just parked on the highway and hiked up the canyon for as long as we wanted.  Then we turned around and came back down.  The canyon never narrowed down like in Escalante, but still fun to zigzag around and see everything.

Petroglyphs in Grand Wash

Grand Wash

We liked the picnic area so much we went back for lunch for a repeat of playing in the river.  After we ate we stopped by the Freemont Petroglyphs.  They were pretty neat to see, but mostly the kids enjoyed petting the thousands of little caterpillars that were crawling along the boardwalks.  They were pretty cool.

Some nice parts of this park are 1) There's no fee to enter  2) Not so crowded 3) There are lots of little side activities that require almost little or no hiking 4) There are fun activities spring/summer/and fall

Family Photo at Chimney Rock

We could spend a week in this national Park and not even scratch the surface of what's down there.  I definitely want to go back in the summer.

Our bucket list for future Capitol Reef visits:
Bum sliding in Sulfur Creek
Leaping into Deep Creek Pool
Hiking the slots in Burro Wash
Hiking Sulfur Creek just across from Chimney Rock down to the Visitor Center
Driving Capitol Gorge Road exploring the canyons and slots
Hiking the Halls Creek Narrows

Howard Prairie Lake, Southern Oregon in July

     My wife, Jayne, and I have been friends with Clint and Kelli for over 14 years now. One thing I have always admired about them is their adventurous nature and the guts they have to always take their growing family along for their many excursions into the wilderness. I’ve always wanted to be a “camping family” but a number of physical and mental factors prohibited us being one for many years. (Perhaps that could be the subject of a future guest post!)
     All that changed last weekend when we finally took the plunge and took our 4 kids (ages 8 - 3 months) camping at Howard Prairie Lake in Southern Oregon. Spoiler Alert: it was a great success! It wasn’t without its trials however. Looking back on the trip, there were a few key lessons we learned that I hope will be a benefit to any readers also looking to take the plunge.

Lesson 1: Know your Gear and Know the Weather

     Prior to this trip, I thought a sleeping bag was a sleeping bag. Sure you could pay big bucks for a 2 lb goose-down bag from REI that could get you through the next ice age, but those were for serious campers. My wal-mart bags will be just fine. Besides, it’s summer time, even if they aren’t the best, they will still do the trick since the weather is warm right? WRONG!
     My first error was believing that Southern Oregon was similar to our home in Northern California. While we enjoyed the gorgeous 70 degree days by the lake, the temp plummeted to the low 40’s at night. I was just fine, as I had a good cold rated sleeping bag. Such was not the case with the rest of my family. The first night I heard my 3 year old shivering in the middle of the night; he eventually ended up squeezing in with me. My wife, the baby and the older two were equally miserable. Turns out our cheap-o bags were 55+ rated, while my bag was 25+. Essentially, the lower the number, the higher the likelihood of staying comfortable down to that temperature. Go below it though, and all bets are off! We had to drive down into town the next day and rectify that with some better bags for the family. A little bit of research on the in’s and out’s of bags and a simply view of weather.com might have saved my kids from a less than stellar first night.

Lesson 2: Bring Experienced Friends the First Time

     The principle reason as to why we chose this site was because it was a somewhat middle point between our home in Sacramento and that of our friends Justin and Erin, who live on the Oregon Coast. They were our neighbors in grad school, all of our kids are within 6 months of each other’s and they have grown to become dear friends over the years. They are also much more experienced campers than us. Besides the fact that we will find any excuse to spend some time with them, I am soooooo glad they were with us for our first
time. From the early planning stages of the trip to the execution of it, it was very nice to have their experience guide us along the way. Not to mention the fact that they had a lot of gear to boot, thereby reducing duplicity and saving me a lot of money. Justin’s knowledge of fishing, fire building, dutch oven cooking and much more reduced a lot of stress on my part, and I could pick his brain about those very subjects and get some very beneficial hands-on training. Erin’s knowledge of kid dressing, sleep arranging and little people feeding was also handy to keep the troops happy. I cannot stress enough that the first excursion should be with some friends who have done it before.

Lesson 3: Create a Narrative

     One activity we did that really paid off throughout the trip came on the first night. We were around the campfire asking the kids about their favorite part of the day. They had been down by the lake exploring and my daughter found a frog among the shoreline mud. Erin incorporated that into a story she told the kids that night. She explained that the frog had granted each of them magical powers of their choosing. The  kids were over the moon about this news! After each child chose their power, we referred back to it frequently throughout the trip. It was a great help to the parents too in order to get them excited about the next activity. If they were sluggish on a hike, we’d simply remind them to seek out the frog again and they were back in it. At another point we were in a nearby town and found a good photo spot. They kids were uncooperative however...until we asked them to show off their super power.

     They began to put that narrative in the context of every activity, which made each one all the more exciting to them. My daughter, Darcy’s, for example, was that she could block heat. As we sat around the camp fire, someone put their hand behind her and exclaimed how cold it was. Darcy’s eyes lit up. “I actually block heat Dad! I really can!”

Lesson 4: Learn Something New

     Ever since he had to watch by the river banks sans pole on our church’s annual Father/Son campout, my oldest son, Jeff, has been asking to go fishing. At first I was reluctant because of my personal lack of skill. I decided to bite the bullet however and use this trip as an opportunity to learn a new skill. Again, my friend Justin knows a lot about fishing so I leaned on his knowledge to help me get started. I’m so glad that I did! Jeff took to fishing like well...a fish to water. Whereas on day one he could hardly cast the line, by day 2 he was angling with the best of them. Now that he is a somewhat competent fisherman (aside from the occasional line tangles) we now have a new hobby that we can go and do together anytime back at home. It is my goal now to pick up or try a new outdoor hobby with each trip we take. I suggest that you do the same. You may not like everything you try but you’ll never know until you do. Next trip...Dutch Oven cooking!

Lesson 5: Let Go

     At times I am a control freak with my kids. I want to make sure they act right, eat right, be polite and on and on. Don’t touch this, clean that, eat there etc. For the first day we were at the lake, I found myself freaking out over these same things as I do at home. It caused me to lose my patience a time or two with the kids. Reflecting on the day, I realized that I just needed to let go a little bit. It is okay if the fishing pole gets tangled, if the shoes get muddy, if the dessert doesn’t turn out just right. We were camping dog gone it, just loosen up a little and let them be kids! Let them play and fall and scratch their knee. Let them be involved in meal prep and clean up, even if it takes a little longer. Let them stay up, be loud, get messy, eat too much sugar, help with the fire, ask you a ton of questions. As soon as I flipped that switch and just loosened up, EVERYONE’S trip got better. Of course some limits were set, but I didn’t let the expectations at home transfer 100% to the lake. Subsequently, I learned that I could loosen up a little bit at home as well.
     So all in all, our first trip set the stage for many more. I realize that we won’t have 100% success on every trip we take in the future, but the lessons learned from the first one have set a foundation to try our very hardest to make it so.

Lower Bell Canyon in June

This is probably the easiest kid hike on the Wasatch Front. It's easy and quick to get to and such a fun hike that my three year old went both up and down, no problem.  I like that we don't have to drive up any canyons so it's a quicky if you don't have much time.  You park in the lot just east of the intersection at Wasatch Blvd and S Little Cottonwood Road (about 9600 S).  There's an outhouse right there for the kiddos who may not like to go out in the bush. It's about a mile up to the lake on a well maintained trail. We are always rewarded with ducks and fish to look at at the lake. I've seen lots of dads and kiddos fishing too. If you hike up the trail longer, I've heard there's a pretty waterfall and another lake, but the kids (and the parents carrying them) have never made it up past the lower lake.  There's also a more difficult, but prettier trail farther south on Wasatch Blvd, just look for the parking lot on the east side of Wasatch.  This trail goes along a trail and has some little waterfalls and bridges to walk over, but it's super steep.  We got the kiddos some kid sized camel backs this spring and they love having their own water/gatorade to drink at will.  Just one warning though, if you do put some yummy tasting beverage inside, they don't have much self control and drink the whole thing in minutes. Then you have to take a lot of potty breaks.  I stick to water and then just make them stop and take a few swallows every so often.

Clint with all 4 kids at Lower Bell June 2013

Martha and Mary Lake in July

We have done this hike with the kids every year since the twins were one! It's about a mile and a half up and you get a fantastic reward at the top with the most spectacular mountain lakes.  I like to do this one near the beginning of the summer because sometimes the lake drops significantly by the end of the summer. You start the hike in the parking lot of Brighton Ski Resort up Big Cottonwood Canyon just east of Sandy, Utah.  Make sure you take plenty of water because the trail is not very well shaded.  KK, my 3 year old made it almost half way up, and then she pooped out and went into the backpack.  We let the kids take off their shoes and dip their feet in the water. Though that's probably not allowed since it's a watershed.

The nice part of this hike is you do all the work on the way up and then you can eat lunch or a snack and then it's downhill all the way back to the car when everyone is tired.  We also found some fun snow patches that the kids went sliding down.  We've often seen moose and other fun wildlife, though I'm never excited to get too close to a moose, they freak me out!

Here's a few pictures of us over the years with the kiddos. It's fun to see how our family has changed!

2 kids 2008

3 kids 2010

3 kids 2011

4 kids 2012

4 kids 2013

Raccoon Creek State Park in June

We had some good friends, Heather and Hyrum who lived in Austin with us. They were always planning some fun adventures even with the kids, so I asked her to do a guest post. I hope you enjoy her adventures in Pennsylvania!  The following is a kamping with kiddos post from Heather!

Thanks to Kelli for inviting me to share an experience from our family camping trips. We have taken all of our kids on camping trips pretty early in life. We’re definitely not as rustic as Clint and Kelli though.

We went camping in June to Raccoon Creek State Park outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with our four children, ages 6, 4, 2 and 1. The weather was lovely, highs in the mid-70’s and lows in the 50’s.

The highlights of this trip were the beach and a little hike we took around the lake. The beach trail was about .3 miles of downhill from the camp site. The trail was well kept and easy to follow. Charlotte-2, tripped a few times so make sure you have band-aids. This way took about 15 minutes.

The beach has nice sand that goes right into the water. There is little shade nearby so next time I would bring a beach umbrella. There is a bathhouse close for changing and showering off as well as a concession stand down the road. We liked what we saw and headed back up the hill after doing a little wading. This time we took about 20-30 minutes.

Our big hike was the Wetlands Trail--1.2 miles. We took this to Nichol Rd, then the Heron trail (.5 miles) until meeting back up with the Wetlands Trail to our car. It took us about three hours to do the whole trip, maybe 3 miles altogether. The Wetlands trail is categorized as easiest hiking by the park and while the terrain is fairly level and easy, the trail was overgrown with wild raspberry bushes and other thorny vegetation so long pants are recommended.

The Wetlands trail winds around the Upper Lake in the park and then into a valley to meet up with Nichol Rd. The first part of the trail is wide and easy. It is through long grass and we got wet from dew--I was wet to my waist by the time we finished hiking the trail. We enjoyed seeing some herons, frogs, and a water snake. The vegetation got fuller about .75 miles in and stayed that way up until the last .2 miles or so on the Wetlands Trail. There were a couple of large dips as well where the trail comes quite close the bank of the lake. The vegetation made it difficult to see and at one spot Hyrum took a spill with Spencer-1 in the kid pack. Nichol Rd is a wide gravel road with a gradual uphill when headed toward the Heron trail. The heron trail was mostly down hill as we headed down to the Wetlands trail. We thought the Heron trail was easy due to the lack of vegetation. The whole trail was also very shady.

I find that one of the best things to remember with kids is always have food and water. Those two things can calm just about any complaint. Camping with kids is a fun and worthwhile experience. It was nice to unplug, talk and play games together as a family. It requires flexibility and patience, but is well worth the work.

Snake River in June

We do this trip every year as a family. It's the Einfeldt/Herbert Family Reunion and it never lets us down.  As the kids get older they have more fun, though it's mostly a trip for the enjoyment of the adults! We set up a base camp at East Table Campground about 10 miles east of Alpine, Wyoming.  We camp for 3 days and 3 nights.  The kids run around the campground in a little pack playing in dirt and mud for 3 days straight and never get bored! They are only allowed to go down by the river if they have on a life jacket and in the company of a responsible adult.  The kids LOVE throwing rocks into the river.

This year we borrowed my Aunt's motor home and slept like royalty! It was nice to have a place to put the baby to sleep that was more insulated from sound and weather (we made him a bed in the shower). We also have a nice shade canopy that doubles as a place to get out of the rain. It can still act like winter in June in Jackson, so it's good to be prepared. We take full winter coats, hats and mittens for the kids. I take my good waterproof hiking boots just to wear around camp and my old swim team coat (a calf length long fleece lined coat).

We had quite a few little kids this year, so Clint planned a kids float trip from Astoria Hot springs down to East Table.  We saw several bald eagles, lots of geese and baby geese, and even a beaver.  Clint pulled over and we hiked out to a "secret" tank that he knew is parked on the other side of the river. It took us about 2 hours, but the kids had fun paddling and we even hit a few little whitewater rapids.

The boat was a little crowded, but here's the wild kid ride!

We don't usually let the kids ride down lower canyon until they are ten years old. If they want to challenge to go sooner, they can.  But they have to pass a test.  Their dad throws them in the water and if they can keep their cool and swim back to the boat by themselves, then they can go down on the next trip. We make them wait until the next trip so they can go get warm and dry and not freeze the entire trip down.  So far, since we started the challenge, we've only had one little toughy pass the test. He's the little blondie near the back right of the kids trip.  He also went cliff diving and did a front flip off the cliff. Crazy brave kid!!!

Probably the highlight of the trip for the kids was making FAIRY HOUSES.  Since my three oldest are girls, we do lots of girly things, though Clint adapted it for the boys and they went searching for stuff to make troll bridges.  My sister in law Jennie brought these books she had seen back east about fairy houses that had pictures of all these incredible places people had built. All the Grandmas Becky, Claudia, and even Grandma Debi had so much fun decorating little fairy houses with the kids. Jennie even wrote the kids little notes from the fairies that had come to stay in the house, and sprinkled glitter around as "fairy dust." I imagine with the boys you could do something similar.  I can't believe how detailed they all got with their houses. It lasted for 3 whole days of kid entertainment.

Ali with her fairy house.

Summer with her fairy house.

The real reason we go on this trip is for the ADULTS!! We take turns watching each other's kids to do 3-4 trips down lower canyon a day.  It wasn't really big water this year, but it was still big enough for Clint to flip his raft (not on purpose). They saved everyone real quick, but it was definitely a first for Clint, his pride is maybe a little bruised after that.  We have all the rafts, life jackets, and gear, so if anyone ever wants to join us, let me know. We always need more paddlers!!!