Family Camping & 14ers
Store Manager Kunlong and his family went camping and tackled Mt. Elbert, one of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks:
My wife Leah, 6-year-old son Levi, and I started the hike at 5:00am and it went really well. It was a cold morning (31 degrees) to say the least. Levi was a complete beast and went for it for sure. We did have a little bribe in the form of Hot Tamales and marshmallows to help. But we did a great job about asking him to turn around if he wanted to.
It was a long day for sure and the three false summits did not help. Ten plus hours round trip and when everyone was done, we were still in good spirits. The true encouragement actually came from him though. He knew how hard this could be and he wanted wake up early and do it, we did not know it was going to be as cold as it was though.
The biggest advice I have for other parents who want to try and hike a 14er with their kids is to recognize you have to drop your own kid protection armor and get the food he or she could want on a hike like this and talk about it well ahead of time. Prepping a kid that age is so important. We are fortunate that Levi loves reading and stories so that helped with getting him motivated for his morning and my wife Leah is a Queen of organization and she was all over it.
We slept on an Exped Double for sleeping comfort before our adventure up Mt. Elbert with our six year old. The pad was so needed and had such a loftiness to it and allowed you to bring a little home on our camping trip. Meaning something that feels like our bed. to Cook a great meal using our Ignik gas growler to help save our environment and lessen the footprint and trash. It was awesome to know that I can go and fill this growler up again and not worry about where the next green container will go. My wife and I are trying everything to recycle or find ways to reuse hard products and this Ignik gas growler is one of the big answers to that.
Use Code KUNLONG15 on our website or in-store for 15% off Ignik Gas Growlers & Exped Megamats until July 27th!
My wife Leah, 6-year-old son Levi, and I started the hike at 5:00am and it went really well. It was a cold morning (31 degrees) to say the least. Levi was a complete beast and went for it for sure. We did have a little bribe in the form of Hot Tamales and marshmallows to help. But we did a great job about asking him to turn around if he wanted to.
It was a long day for sure and the three false summits did not help. Ten plus hours round trip and when everyone was done, we were still in good spirits. The true encouragement actually came from him though. He knew how hard this could be and he wanted wake up early and do it, we did not know it was going to be as cold as it was though.