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| Kieran on a day hike. |
Hikes with Tykes arises from personal experiences hiking with my son and from those of many other parents who have taken their children on the trial. All of us head into the wilds at least once a week and have been doing so for a long time. I took my son, Kieran, on his first hike when he was but four-months-old, through an old grove of redwood trees that soared 150 feet over our heads. He thoroughly enjoyed it, and we haven’t stopped since, peak-bagging mountains, rambling along coastlines, searching fossil and gem trails, and exploring desert canyons, often all in the same month. Now that he’s four, we average a couple of day hikes a week.
Each of those hikes has brought us closer together as father and son. We’ve shared fantastic experiences, from seeing waterfalls off mountain sides to clambering over 20 million-year-old rocks that at one time sat on the ocean floor. We’ve urged each other up peaks that soar a mile-and-a-half into the sky. We’ve watched in mutual wonder as tiny bugs carried loads double their weight across roads and as a condor soared above us, its massive wings casting shadows across the bluff walls. All of this was done within a mere 60 miles of our house, on simple trips that took no more than a morning or an afternoon to complete.
Read more about day hiking with children in my Hikes with Tykes guidebooks.
