Backpacking baby

We have gone on four backpacking trips with Melina this summer, and it turns out that she's a natural. I don't know many two-year-olds who can hike a mile over rocky terrain... but then again, I don't know many two-year-olds at all, so maybe this is normal? Anyway, in late July we went on a weeklong trip to the Redwoods, with two two-night backpacking trips separated by two nights at the Patrick Creek Lodge. The first trip was a one-mile hike down to Redwood Creek, a beautiful, clear creek hemmed in by tall redwood stands. The water level was low, so you could hike for miles along the gravel bars, wading through the water when necessary. It felt very remote and wild; a bear crossed our path as we drove in on a gravel road. The stream was full of caddis fly larvae (a sign of a healthy stream) and baby trout, and we saw some interesting new bugs, including a little inchworm with big black eyes and a giant green grasshopper.

Redwood Creek is a great place to backpack with kids. The trail in is rather steep, but short; there are lots of hollowed out redwoods to play house in; the water in the creek is pretty shallow and not too cold in July; and because you're camping on gravel, there's a minimum of dirt. (Nevertheless, Melina managed to get completely filthy several times over).

Our second backpacking trip was along the Doe Flat trail to Buck Lake in the Six Rivers Recreation Area. This trail was 1.8 miles long, and the early stretches had some scary cliffs, so Melina rode on Jeff's shoulders much of the time. Other than that, this was another great trail for kids. The first day we had Buck Lake all to ourselves - just us, a tame doe that broke into our bag of gorp and continued creeping around the campsite at night, some chipmunks, and a bear (briefly) splashing in the lake the following morning. It was absolutely silent - almost too silent for someone used to hearing fans and air filters blowing at night. The second night, a large family showed up and camped on the other side of the lake. Even though they were fairly quiet, their presence brought out my xenophobic tendencies and I realized that I'd really like to go backpacking somewhere where you don't see other people. Isn't that the whole point of backpacking? Of course, when you can only go a mile or two in, you don't get all THAT remote.

While we were in the area we went on a day hike to Devil's Punchbowl, a higher elevation alpine lake three miles from our camp. We actually never made it to the lake because the trail became more and more rocky and steep, my fear of heights kicked in, and neither Jeff or I thought it was safe to continue on with Melina in the backpack. So instead we found a hidden pool, populated only by a garter snake, and had lunch there. Jeff skinny dipped and I stuck my head under a waterfall, and we were all entertained watching the ants carry away pieces of our lunch. On the way back, Melina developed some strong preferences about pine cones and kept asking for different pine cones along the way. There were some huge ones there, including Ponderosa pine cones that were about ten inches long.

One other thing: on our hike in, we saw a creature that I could only identify as a mountain beaver. Who knew there was such a thing as a mountain beaver? I learned about it in a wildlife book I bought at the ranger station office. It's not a beaver at all - more like a large fuzzy loaf of bread. I staked out a mountain beaver colony for a while in the early morning, but I didn't see a thing.