{"id":8733,"date":"2021-07-13T03:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T09:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigoutside.com\/?p=8733"},"modified":"2021-10-11T04:30:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T10:30:12","slug":"boy-trip-girl-trip-why-i-take-father-son-and-father-daughter-adventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigoutside.com\/boy-trip-girl-trip-why-i-take-father-son-and-father-daughter-adventures\/","title":{"rendered":"Boy Trip, Girl Trip: Why I Take Father-Son and Father-Daughter Adventures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Michael Lanza<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a morning when the late-summer sunshine sharpens the incisor points of every peak and spire in the jagged skyline of Idaho\u2019s Sawtooth Mountains, Nate and I step inside the Sawtooth National Recreation Area ranger station, south of the little town of Stanley, population sixty-three. I chat with the ranger behind the counter, mentioning that my son and I are heading out to backpack the 18-mile loop from Pettit Lake to Alice and Toxaway Lakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ranger sizes up my six-year-old, 40-pound kid, and frowns skeptically. \u201cYou know, that\u2019s a pretty rugged hike,\u201d he tells me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Over the years to follow, I would become accustomed to seeing that expression on the faces of well-intentioned people worried about what I was planning to do with my children. I would also get used to hearing the tone of voice someone uses when what they really want to tell me is: \u201cYou, sir, are a crazed lunatic, and coyotes will pick your child\u2019s and your bones clean before we even find you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\"\"<\/strong>Hi, I\u2019m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here<\/a> to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside<\/a> to get full access to all of my blog\u2019s stories. Click here<\/a> for my e-guides to classic backpacking trips. Click here<\/a> to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.<\/p>\n

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\"Alex<\/a>
Alex on the New Hance Trail, Grand Canyon.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I try to explain that I know these trails and the little boy with the stuffed dolphin has done a fair bit of hiking already\u2014for someone who weighs less than the backpack I\u2019ll carry for the next three days. But as we leave, I doubt I\u2019ve allayed that ranger\u2019s concerns. He\u2019s probably made a mental note to check for my car at the trailhead in a few days, to make sure that the overzealous dad and his bear-snack-size kid made it out of the wilderness alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the trail a little while later, Nate and I set out at a very casual pace, slowed by the frequent demands of important business like stopping to eat more chocolate or throw rocks at trees and boulders. Nature, it turns out, is conveniently well stocked with excellent throwing rocks and<\/em> worthy targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That first evening, I hurriedly throw the tent up just before a violent thunderstorm rents the sky open. Then Nate and I huddle inside, warm and dry in our bags, listening to the pounding of rain on our nylon walls and repeatedly exclaiming, \u201cWow, did you hear that<\/em> one?!\u201d after each tectonic rumble of thunder quakes the air around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, we spend close to an hour slam-dunking rocks into Alice Lake. Each time, Nate erupts with a heartfelt belly laugh over the concussive effect of the rocks on the water\u2019s surface. I laugh almost as hard at his laughter. After a difficult hike over a pass around 9,200 feet, we descend to Toxaway Lake with Nate looking bleary-eyed at mid-afternoon. But when we find a campsite in the woods with a small creek gurgling nearby, he revives as suddenly as if he were Superman and I had just tossed the Kryptonite it into the lake. Nate passes the next couple of hours quietly constructing stone dams in the creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the evening, we hurl rocks into Toxaway, and then sit together atop a big granite slab on the shore, talking about space travel and which dinosaurs would beat other dinosaurs in a fight. On our third and final day, my first-grader cranks out nine miles with more stamina than many adults\u2014although, by the end, he\u2019s so punch-drunk tired that the sound of air shrieking through the pinched neck of a balloon sends him into paroxysms of hysterical laughter that make me double over laughing, too. I\u2019d actually planned on four days, but he comes up with the brilliant plan to finish in three, get milkshakes to celebrate, camp another night nearby, then rent a two-person, sit-on-top kayak to paddle around Redfish Lake tomorrow morning, before heading home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was our second outing in what has become an annual, multi-day, father-son adventure together. We call it our \u201cBoy Trip,\u201d a term coined by Nate years ago. He\u2019s now a teenager, and for both of us, the Boy Trip has risen to a status among the most exalted events on the calendar. Partly that\u2019s because we always get outdoors on a fun adventure. But mostly it\u2019s because we love carving out time for just the two of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like what you’re reading? Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter<\/a>!<\/em><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Young<\/figure><\/div>
\"Young<\/figure>
\"Young<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
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\"Lupine<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Idaho\u2019s Smoky Mountains<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Fast-forward several years. Sunset looms but the air has hardly cooled in this August heat wave as we start the roughly two-mile hike to the Norton Lakes in central Idaho\u2019s Smoky Mountains. My nine-year-old daughter, Alex, and I are backpacking in to spend two nights at the lakes with our friends Gary Davis and his girls, Mae, 11, and Adele, who\u2019s eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex and Adele have been BFFs since they were old enough to comprehend that the world offered other children to play with besides the older siblings who snatched toys from them and occasionally dropped something on their head. As we hike, they walk side-by-side as if joined at the hip, talking constantly, which helpfully distracts them from the uphill effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Young
Hiking above Norton Lakes in Idaho’s Smoky Mountains.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Wildfires have been burning across the entire West for weeks. Temperatures at home in Boise have been hitting 100 too much lately, and the air quality is approximately as healthy as putting your mouth over a running car\u2019s exhaust pipe. Gary had suggested we take the girls out to the mountains, where the smoke is at least more dissipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it happened, Alex and I had set aside this same weekend for our Girl Trip\u2014the name she gives to our annual father-daughter getaway, as a counterpoint to Nate\u2019s and my Boy Trip. Alex generously grants me a waiver for my inferior gender to enable our Girl Trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before dark on this calm and mild evening, we reach the lower Norton Lake, its shore mostly ringed by ponderosa pines, with a steep scree slope rising from one side. While Gary and I pitch our tents, the girls scout the night woods around us with headlamps until everyone\u2019s tired enough to head for our sleeping bags. Alex and I do a Sudoku puzzle together by headlamp in the tent. She somehow thinks she solves much more of it than I do. To protect her self-esteem, I don\u2019t contest her claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
Click here now<\/a> to learn more.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Nate and me at Cove Lake in the Big Boulder Lakes, White Cloud Mountains, Idaho.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the morning, we all hike a trail through numerous switchbacks up to a pass several hundred feet above our camp, looking back down at the Norton Lakes. After a lunch capped with copious helpings of chocolate, we follow a steep, fainter user path up onto a narrow ridge crest of broken rock. (Early tomorrow, before anyone else is awake, I\u2019ll make a quick, dawn hike up here again and surprise three mountain goats on this ridge.) Moving carefully through a few exposed spots, we scramble along the ridge to the summit of Norton Peak, at 10,336 feet the second highest in the Smoky Mountains. Although the air remains hazy with wildfire smoke, we can see most of this range of 10,000-footers, and across the Wood River Valley to the even more severely vertical and rocky Boulder Mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the summit, the three girls pump fists in the air. Then we carefully backtrack over the ridge and quickly descend the trail back to camp, where our expedition\u2019s real celebration of our epic achievement ensues over s\u2019mores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want to read any story linked here?
Get full access to ALL stories at The Big Outside, plus a FREE e-guide. Join now<\/a>!<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Never Easy to Make Time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s never easy to cram the Girl Trip and Boy Trip into any summer, when we usually take them. Our summers are consistently chock-full with outdoor travel either as a family or me going out sans family for my work. I\u2019m usually away for upwards of half the summer\u2014so much that, by fall, I\u2019m burnt out on packing and unpacking gear and ready to stay home (a feeling that I get over within about a week, actually\u2014but that\u2019s another story<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, I’ve always committed to fitting in our Girl Trip and Boy Trip every year. Nate and Alex both considered it non-negotiable, as mandatory as celebrating their birthdays. I just love that they feel that strongly about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always tried to steer us toward outdoor adventures that are age-appropriate for my kids\u2014who started young enough that they were always, admittedly, fairly advanced in their abilities, stamina, and confidence for their ages. And I have deliberately avoided pushing my own agenda. I wanted them to feel we share the decision on what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want this lifestyle for your<\/i> family?
Use my “7 Tips for Getting Your Family on Outdoor Adventure Trips<\/a>.”<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nate<\/figure>
\"Rock<\/figure>
\"Backpacking<\/figure><\/div>
\"Fishing<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
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\"Lake<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sawtooths to Grand Canyon and Mount Whitney<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our annual Boy Trip and Girl Trip don\u2019t have to be major expeditions. We rarely leave our home state. The first, when Nate was five, consisted of him and me backpacking about a mile (he carried only a tiny daypack and his dolphin) to camp beside a creek in the Boise Foothills, a 10-minute drive from our home. To the occasional hikers and trail runners passing by, our campsite may have looked rather uninteresting; but to Nate, it felt as wild and remote as the Himalayan Mountains. Besides, we had enough sticks to launch into the creek and rocks to bomb them with to keep us occupied for hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nate and I have backpacked to the Big Boulder Lakes in Idaho\u2019s White Cloud Mountains<\/a>, rock climbed at Idaho\u2019s City of Rocks National Reserve and Castle Rocks State Park, and backpacked into the southern Sawtooths with one of his buddies and that kid\u2019s dad, camping by the shore of an unnamed lake, fishing, and exploring off-trail around a little-visited lakes basin. When he was 15, we climbed the highest peak in the Lower 48, California\u2019s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney <\/a>together\u2014raising the bar for Girl Trip and Boy Trip destinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here now<\/a> to plan your next great backpacking adventure using my expert e-guides.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
Nate and me climbing the Mountaineers Route on California’s Mount Whitney.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When Alex was younger, our first Girl Trips consisted of spending weekends skiing, biking, or dayhiking together. I didn\u2019t push backpacking with her, waiting for her to welcome that idea. When she was 10, she and I joined two families I know on a three-day, Grand Canyon backpacking trip<\/a>. When she was 14, we went to Costa Rica\u2014again raising the bar for Girl Trip and Boy Trip destinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These outings deliver multiple benefits. The adventures always forge memories. They give me an excuse to get out. Plus, I\u2019m hoping to nurture in my kids a love for the same activities I enjoy. But I have a broader agenda than all of those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make sure your kids want <\/em>to go again.
See \u201cThe 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips<\/a>.\u201d<\/h4>

<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Young
Alex and me on Horseshoe Mesa in the Grand Canyon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On our first trips, when they were little, my one-on-one conversations with each of them focused on such weighty matters as their favorite toys and games. But as they have grown older, we talk about their relationships with their friends, how much freedom and responsibility they want to have, those odd creatures making up the opposite gender, and how they navigate the mysterious and confusing waters of growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Always, our conversations focus on whatever\u2019s on Nate\u2019s or Alex\u2019s mind and consist mostly of me listening with deep interest. I want them to remember these experiences not just for the fun we had together, but as times when we could talk about absolutely anything, and I would listen and care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, we talk about what new adventures we want to take together in coming years\u2014because one goal of any trip should be figuring out where and when you\u2019ll take the next one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like this story? You may also like \u201cThe 9 Hardest Lessons for Parents Who Love the Outdoors<\/a>\u201d
\nand \u201cWhy I Endanger My Kids in the Wilderness (Even Though It Scares the Sh!t Out of Me)<\/a>.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Nate high up the Elephant’s Perch in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I continued these father-son and father-daughter trips right through their high-school years and beyond; Nate and I rock climbed the Elephant’s Perch in Idaho’s Sawtooths together the summer he was 19. We have created a tradition that I hope my kids see as critical to continue now that they’ve become young adults, on the brink of leaving to build their own lives. Just like they hold me to it now, I intend to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the only payoff I really need from these experiences are the moments like one when Nate reached high to throw an arm around my shoulders and told me, \u201cI love these trips we do together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s enough right there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell me what you think.<\/h3>\n

If you enjoyed this story, please consider giving it a share using one of the buttons at right, and leave a comment or question at the bottom. I\u2019d really appreciate it.<\/h4>\n

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The Big Outside will help your family get outdoors more.
 Join now<\/a> for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-guide!<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Lanza On a morning when the late-summer sunshine sharpens the incisor points of every peak and spire in the jagged skyline of Idaho\u2019s Sawtooth Mountains, Nate and I step inside the Sawtooth National Recreation Area ranger station, south of the little town of Stanley, population sixty-three. I chat with the ranger behind the counter, mentioning that my son … <\/p>\n

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