Lame Parenting and the Torrential Downpour

Why I Backpack with a Toddler

All photos by J.D.Grubb

3am.

Insistent, shifting gusts slammed rain against our tent. In the loud dark, the wind wrenched tent pegs from the ground, ripped the raincover from our packs. Sudden drops penetrated the rainfly to pelt my face, my sleeping bag, and tomorrow’s clothes.

I spent no part of the night asleep. I focused instead on balancing my toddler’s body on my chest to protect her from the bag’s wettest patches. Into my dampening pillow I grumbled, “Drought shmout, California.”

The Road Here

We were so excited for this trip. It was to be our first backpacking trip longer than one night with our little one.

Before we became parents, friends used to smile at our dreams of backpacking, rock-climbing, and sailing with kids. “You better do the fun stuff now,” they warned. “Kids come along and your adventures are over.”

We pretended to listen, but of course we expected to be the exception. Having a child wouldn’t squelch our yearning for the extraordinary. Other people didn’t share our values. Other people liked comfort and convenience more than exploring the great wild unknown together.

And then, pregnancy. An incubating dream, the tiny wild unknown inside me.

I stayed active. I jogged, kayaked, swam, and took backpacking trips at 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months in. I got a lot of props for this, and I do love props. And there was part of me that wanted to prove: if you love it, you will do it, even with kids.

Backpacking with Matthew. I'm four months along here.

The day after Vienna’s delivery my hips and pelvis wobbled, rubbery, when I tried to stand up. Birthing demands much of the female body. My inability to instantly do and be exactly what I had done and been before Vienna surprised me. I wondered if my single and kid-free buddies would now lump me in with Everyone Else.

Maybe this backpacking trip, longer than any we'd done since Vienna, was my chance to prove them wrong.

Climbing Muscles
The hike up, a few hours before the downpour began, was physically arduous for me, but visually stunning. I was new to my pack, the Osprey Poco, snagged for cheap and good for carrying both gear and toddler. I was new to the trail as well, a 4.5 mile ascent in the Sunol-Ohlone wilderness just north of Milpitas, CA.

Ready or not, here we ascend.

I felt the difference between baby and toddler with every step. My shoulders bowed under the pack, and my butt, I was pretty sure, would burn flat off by the trip’s end. But I also reveled in my sure-footed steps, in the generous expansion of my lungs, and in my leg muscles, aching but capable.

“What a good way to be a woman,” I chanted to myself, panting. “What a strong way to be a mother!”

We wound endlessly up golden hills as the sun sank beneath them and the breeze lifted the day’s heat from our necks. Above us, stars intensified and multiplied as we left the city’s lights behind.

Passing the Night

As we set up camp at the top, a mist turned to drizzle, then matured into a full-blown deluge before the stovetop mac n cheese was done. The summit was suddenly cold and very, very windy. I bundled Vienna into the tent, gobbled dinner, and followed in after her for a night of nurse-dozing, dodging drops, and one half-clothed dash outside to restake a peg.

In the night I agonized as only the insomniac can. Would I be strong enough to push on for 12 miles tomorrow? What if the next night was just like this? If I wimped out, what would it say about me?

Descending

Morning dawned unrepentantly sopping.

“We’re packin’ it in,” I told our friends. Vienna’s health trumped everything; I knew I couldn’t guarantee her a dry night. But I was desperately hoping our pals would bail too, so that it wouldn’t be a lame parent thing, just a lousy weather thing.

Breakfast in the morning, a hurried, soggy affair. Thank God for light cheap ponchos.

Vienna and I get ready to pack it in.

They deliberated over breakfast. And decided to push on. My identity as The Up-For-Anything Mama took a hit.

But as we began the descent back to the car, it was impossible to stay discouraged. The gray clouds receded, revealing wide green pastures and huge fortresses of rock, all the more richly colored for being rain-soaked. We saw hawks idling above us, looking for prey, framed by redwoods older than the town below. The air was so fresh, breathing felt like drinking.

Vienna sat cozy in her flannel footie pajamas on my back, singing in a high soft babble about everything we passed. Matthew and I murmured to each other on the way down, pointing out a cluster of poppies, a monstrous fern frond, a black squirrel scattering raindrops down onto us.

Rest

At the bottom we all lunched together before parting ways. Now dry and warm, Vienna bounced into motion, collecting pine-cones, chatting at the racoons, and flirting with everyone we met. To her, lunch-time alone was a smashing success, not to mention the joyful ruckus preceding it.

And she was right. The whole thing was a success. Because I don’t backpack with my family to earn props, to illustrate that parents can be cool, or to prove anything to anybody, including myself.

I backpack to breathe the clean air and walk at nature’s pace for a time. To journey, with the people I love best, into a realm outside our control. To enjoy the singular simplicity of a year, or a day, in which to Walk, Marvel, Eat, and Sleep are the only tasks - that is the real adventure.