Family of six hikes 93-mile Wonderland Trail

Posted by
#I've got a parenting question!#hiking#travel

wonderland2This summer, Ben and Kami Crawford decided to go for a little family hike … “little” meaning 93 miles around Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail in Washington. They made the trek with their four kids — ages 2, 4, 6 and 8 — in a total of 12 days, going up and down 22,000 feet of elevation.

I hear a lot of fear mongering about Once you have kids you’ll never be able to travel — IF you leave the house at all, it’s all Disneyland and road trips to visit grandparents from here on out, so I’m totally inspired by the Crawford family’s hike!

There’s a full gallery of photos on Facebook, or you can watch the series of narrated slideshows that The Crawfords made on their blog.

About the Author: Ariel

@findyourafterglow

Author of three editions of the Offbeat Bride book and its sequel (From Shitshow To Afterglow, the ultimate offbeat breakup book) Ariel Meadow Stallings is the publisher of all the Offbeat Empire web properties. She lives in Seattle with her son. To read her latest work, follow @arielist.

Comments on Family of six hikes 93-mile Wonderland Trail

  2. Awesome. When I was a kiddie my parents would take my brother and I hiking and camping all the time. I never understood the concept of "family vacations", since we spent all our breaks filtering water and endlessly packing and unpacking food from the bear box!

  3. i'm totally inspired!! i'm worried about trips to the grocery store right now with a 2yr old and an infant, let alone mile after mile hikes. but i'm inspired!

  4. My parents either took me with them or left me with a relative or my at-home daycare so I know that travel after kids is entirely possible. It's still good to hear/see other examples though.

  7. This is amazing!! I had to laugh at the comments above because we had a "bear box" also. It was a big, steel, (HEAVY SO HEAVY) box we traipsed all over the Washington outback with. My parents idea of camping was: if there is infrastructure at all, we need to keep going. I treasured so much of that! Two summers ago, we took our kids (then 3 and 7) for a 10 day camp although it was car camping, and we also were in actual campgrounds (hangs head in shame). But, I'm hoping we will ramp it up and do some hiking this summer. Great story!

Join the Conversation