Little Legs Having Big Adventures
Sara Richardson and her husband, Mark, instilled a love of nature to their son, Sam, from a very young age. As Sam grew, they continued to hike together as a family, encouraging little legs with big adventures along the Tour du Mont Blanc and the Walker’s Haute Route.
I still remember the feeling I had in my heart the first time I saw the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I was about 8 years old and my parents had taken me there on vacation. I was entirely in awe. Compared to the wooded areas and rolling hills of New England, the towering mountains and wide-open spaces made me feel like I was on a different planet. I vowed to live in Colorado one day.
I was in my 20s, when I made it to Colorado and met my husband Mark. We quickly discovered we both absolutely loved being out in nature and spent the first few years of our marriage exploring the mountains of Colorado and climbing every peak over 14,000ft (4,267m. There are 54 of them!). We developed mountaineering skills, a healthy respect for the mountains, and a love for wild places.
Mark and I waited 5 years to have a child. While we both wanted to have a family, we were worried about what kind of impact it would have on our adventure-filled lifestyle. To lose our connection to the outdoors would be devastating. We had seen some of our friends that used to love hiking with us give it up once they started to have children. We vowed that we would not let that happen to us. Sam was born in November, and keeping true to our word, at 10 days old we took him up to the ski area, where Mark and I traded off watching him while the other went snowboarding.
The next spring, when Sam was 7 months old, we took him up his first mountain in a backpack baby carrier. As Sam got older, we continued to take him up into the mountains and encouraged him to do as much of the walking as possible. When he got tired, we would carry him. Gradually he did more hiking under his own power, climbing his first high mountain over 14,000 ft (4,267m) completely unassisted at age 6. Sam loved these outdoor adventures, but he would sometimes get tired. However, he was very motivated by the encouragement and compliments from fellow hikers.
By age 8, we took Sam on his first multi-day hike in the Alps, the Tour du Mont Blanc. There were times when the days were a bit long for him, but that same encouragement from others on the trail kept him going, as well as our promise that we would take him to Disneyland Paris when he was finished. Yes, sometimes a bit of bribery is needed!
In 2019, we decided to go back to the Alps to hike the Walker’s Haute Route. Sam, at age 11, worked hard every day on the trail and at night he enjoyed looking back through the maps and the pictures of what he accomplished. Sam is naturally a shy, sensitive kid who doesn’t have an overabundance of self-confidence. However, completing the Walker’s Haute Route definitely gave him a sense of accomplishment and a much-needed boost of self-confidence, something that just about every middle schooler needs!
Over the course of the last 5-6 years, Sam has developed quite an affinity for maps. He loves figuring out exactly where we are on a map and where we are going. He helped us stay on the route several times during the Haute Route and helped us figure out how to get to the trail going down into Gruben.
When we were biking along the Danube, Sam, age 9 at the time, stopped us suddenly and said, “Mom, Dad, we are going the wrong way!” Mark and I both insisted that we were going the right way, Sam was convinced otherwise. We finally stopped and looked at the map. Low and behold, Sam was correct – we had gone about 10k in the wrong direction!
In addition to impressive navigation skills, Sam has a deep love for nature and appreciation for our planet. From a young age he has learned how to care for our planet and the importance of keeping trails sustainable.
My advice for adventurous parents, or parents-to-be, on how to instil a love for the outdoors in your children:
Get outdoors as soon as possible and make it a way of life for your child. We spend the lion’s share of our free time doing outdoor activities. Sam doesn’t know any other way of living.
Keep other aspects of your life simple so you have more time for the outdoors. We have lived in simple homes and have simple vehicles that don’t require a lot of maintenance. Outside of our jobs, there are very few responsibilities we have that keep us inside.
When your children are young it can be a lot of work to take them hiking, camping, skiing or snowshoeing. It can be easy to say no to a backpacking trip when your child is still in diapers. However, it is well worth the joy you see on your child’s face when he spots wildlife, waterfalls, or giant towering peaks.
Both Colorado and Montana, where we live now, are active communities and children are frequently seen out on day hikes. However, I haven’t heard of any children in our community that have completed multi-day hikes like the Tour du Mont Blanc or Walker’s Haute Route.
We are hopeful that we have established a common link through our appreciation of hiking through nature that will keep us connected as a family as Sam grows into adulthood
Author: Sara Richardson, USA.
This story first appeared in The Hiking Club book, Modern Adventurers: Hiking Stories from the Alps. All photos are by Sara Richardson.
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