Hi,

This is a great site, thanks for building it :)

 

We're traveling to Yosemite at the beginning of July to backpack with the kids (7, 5, and 2) through Tuolumne Meadows to Glen Aulin campground (and south to Tenaya Lake after that).  Since there aren't many people that do this kind of thing, we have a couple of questions we're hoping you could help us with:

1. Have you ever done this route?  It's ~5.2 miles to get to Glen Aulin (by far, the longest leg of our 4 night trip).  The rest of the trip is broken into ~2 mile sections.  Our two oldest are super-hikers and since most of the route to Glen Aulin is downhill we feel fairly confident that we'll be fine (but then again, we can't find anyone that's hiked with kids in Yosemite :)  (the youngest will be in a "baby" carrier)
2. This will be our first trip into bear country.  We've read all sorts of stuff about bears seeking out a tiny crumb and smashing car windows to get a stick of gum.  With kids, we do have a higher risk of sleeping with a crumb :)  What do you do to keep the kids crumb free so that you don't end up attracting bears to your tent?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Rich

Sorry Rich,  I haven't done this hike (but now I want to...).  This sounds like a great trip!

As for the bears and very young kids in the backcountry, thanks for a great topic for a future blog post.  I am not aware of special precautions above what is generally recommended  by the NPS and fish and game for backcountry hikers (bear canisters for food, don't leave food around, keep young children in sight at all times, etc). 

I sent an email to the NPS via this link and asked for resources on best practices in the backcountry with very young children (2-7).  I'll post any responses here. 

 Good luck on your trip.  Please let me know how it went!

 

Rich

Below I posted the response from the NPS email.  It has a couple of good tips:

 

I'm not familiar with a website with specific information about backpacking
with young children and I can't think of any specific tips. If you aim to
keep a clean campsite and clean clothing, you'll probably do a pretty good
job. If a particular item of clothing becomes food tainted and you're
concerned a bear might be attracted to it, you could clean the clothing
reasonably well and leave it out next to the bear canister (assuming it
doesn't fit inside). If the shirt is reasonably clean, a bear wouldn't get
any food reward/calories from it, and if it's next to your canister (100
feet or more from where you're sleeping), a bear probably won't bother you
(although there is the risk the clothing could get damaged).

The only other tip I can think of is to make sure your children haven't
hidden some snacks in their packs, pockets, tent, etc.

Jeffrey

National Park Service
Yosemite National Park
http://www.nps.gov/yose/

 Mike,

Great - thanks for the advice and for contacting the NPS.  Sounds like as long as we're diligent and make sure the kids keep the tent free and clear of food, we'll be good to go.  We'll let you know how the trip goes :)

 

Rich

We're a little slow in responding, but we had a great trip in June / July, so here's our trip report :)

 My wife and I took the three kids to Yosemite (2 girls age 7 and 5, and a boy age 2).  We spent 6 days car camping and 4 days in the backcountry.

The car camping was great and the backcountry trip was amazing.  We did a few day hikes in Yosemite Valley (Mirror Lake, Yosemite Falls, the Mist Trail and down the four mile trail (from Glacier Point to the valley)).  Each of the hikes was great.  The hike from Glacier Point to the valley was probably the most difficult because small shoes slipped a lot on that trail (there was a lot of gravel on top of smooth rock / asphalt).

We found the valley to be a little hectic (we were there just prior to July 4th).  July 2nd, we caught the bus to Tuolumne Meadow and started our four night backpacking trip.  This trip was amazing - the first day involved a 6-mile hike along the Tuolumne river to camp behind the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp.  That hike was easily the most amazing hike we've ever been on.  The highlight of the trip was seeing our first bear at the Glen Aulin camp.  We'd been preparing the kids for their first bear sighting and they handled it very well - the bear crossed camp within 30 feet of us and we just stood there in awe.

We should have stayed at Glen Aulin two nights because we could've used a little more rest (we're still learning).  Instead, we hiked out the next day headed toward Tenaya lake on the Murphy's Creek trail.  Just when things were getting difficult for all of us (hiking uphill from Cathedral Creek), we came upon 5 or 6 patches of snow.  What a find - we were eating snow off the ground on July 3rd!  It was a great treat for the kids and helped make for a fun afternoon.

We stayed near Polly Dome Lakes on our second night.  We never did find the main lake, so we gave up and headed out the next day toward Tenaya Lake.

We hiked a short distance from Polly Dome Lakes and found this great spot where Murphy's creek was flowing over a huge expanse of granite.  It formed a bunch of little pools and interconnected streams.  The kids had a blast playing in the water, sending pine cones downstream, swimming in the pools, and playing charades by the campfire.  We spent two great nights here.  We also day hiked to Tenaya lake, caught the free shuttle to grab an ice cream cone (at Tuolumne grocery store), then hiked back in for the night.

It was a fantastic trip.  I fell in love with the mountains.  We had a blast playing together as a family.  It was a grand adventure for each of us.  

Some things we think we learned:
1. It is possible to feed a family of 5 for 4.5 days with only two bear kegs (we dehydrated a bunch of food in the months prior to our trip)

2. It's also possible to pack out diapers.  Our youngest enjoyed learning to pee on a tree, but he still had plenty of diapers to pack out.  We stored them in the bear kegs, being sure to seal everything in plastic bags so it didn't come in contact with the food.

3. We should have stayed two nights at Glen Aulin.  It would've lightened our packs a little for the 2nd half of the trip, not to mention the difficulty we had a Polly Dome Lakes

4. The kids are great hikers!  Getting the kids on the trail leaves them only two options (go forward or go backward).  They did really well and when we they did get tired, we just stopped to take a break.

5. A GPS would have helped tremendously (especially at Polly Dome Lakes)

6. Two sets of clothes for each person was may be one outfit too many (I might have thought differently about this had we been caught in the rain).

7. This earth is amazing - there's no way to really get to know it without experiencing it.

8. In the future, we'll probably look for ways to spend multiple nights in the same spot at the beginning of the trip (instead of like we did here at the end of the trip).  This would allow us to lighten our load a little.

9. We didn't weigh our packs and that was smart.  The few people we saw on the trail asked us and we're glad we didn't know .  I prefer to think of us as being ultralight, so long as you divide our total pack weight by 5 .  My wife carried the two year old along with some clothes.  The 7 year old carried ~10 lbs in sleeping bags and I had everything else (the 5 year old doesn't carry anything).  

10.  Bears won't eat the kids just because they're little .  We heard all sorts of advice prior to heading out - much of it was positive, but we also got the negative nannys.  We chose to listen to the positive folks and were better off for it.  Each night, we just asked the kids what they had in their pockets that smelled (food, bandaids, etc).  They knew the importance of getting the smellables into the bear kegs.

If you'd like to see our path, check out this link:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1962159

Wow.  Thanks for the update, especially the details on how you worked through the logistics....  You guys have inspired us -- this is definately on our to-do list now!!!