THE OUTDOOR KID HANDBOOK
  • Activity Type
    • Backpacking
    • Biking
    • Camping
    • Hiking
    • Skiing/Snowboarding >
      • Sienna Ski Van
    • Climbing
    • Travel (Coming Soon!)
  • General Advice
  • Interviews
  • Blog
  • Outdoor Inspration
  • About
    • Contact us

How to sleep four people in a Sienna v2.0

12/28/2020

0 Comments

 
This winter we made a major redesign on our ski van sleeping system which has been working great during Covid. Here are all the details on what we did, also released as an update to our Sienna Ski Van page.

As engineers, we are constantly thinking about how to improve our systems. We also got complaints from our growing children about the lack of space above the cots. So for the 2020/21 ski season we made a major upgrade to our system.

The biggest change is that instead of the home made cot system that sits on the dashboard of the car we bought two aluminum frame military-style cots and set up a system to use them in the van. This makes for a faster set up and gives the kids much more headroom.

To fit the cots into the car, we fully recline the front seats (like in our previous version) and slide the center legs of the cot around the front seats:
Picture
The cot legs in the front of the car sit on a wooden board that rests across the two front seats for stability. 
Picture
Picture
In order to make the cot fit, we had to move the front legs backwards a bit, so we just drilled new holes in the cot to move the attachment points:
Picture
For the rear of the cots, we support them on a dowel that is hung from the handles:
Picture
Picture
To keep the cots from sliding around, we loop the webbing through the dowel inside the cot:
Picture
To store the cots while we are driving, we build two boxes that are placed behind the front seats and attached to the captain's chair anchors on the floor. The boxes have notches where the cot support dowel and another 2"x2" bar go across them. A bungee is attached to hold down the lid and cross-bars for safety while driving. It is attached to the box in the back and the bungee hooks around a knob on the front of the box.
Picture
Picture
Picture
We take the wooden board that is used in the front seats to support the cots and put it across these boxes to create a bench in the back seat. This bench is incredibly useful for eating meals inside the van or for sitting on while you put your ski boots on. This has been important during Covid for making our van into a basecamp during bad weather.

The boxes are used to store hats/gloves/balaclavas/etc and toiletries. The sleeping pads for the kids and the window covers are stored between the bench and the back of the front seats. We use a bungee cord to keep the wooden board attached to the bench and a mesh bungee when we're driving to put helmets etc on top of the bench.
Picture
Picture
The parent sleeping system is the same as before - using the folding cushions. These are still stored behind the back seats, with the sleeping bags, pillows, and clothes bags:
Picture
With the new system, the kids are a lot happier (at ages 11 and 7) so we can hopefully last for a few more years. And it works great during Covid where your car needs to be your home base.
0 Comments

Interview: Dennis & Laura (climbing, camping, hiking, skiing, kayaking, canoeing)

12/9/2020

0 Comments

 
We're excited to share another interview this week! This one is really interesting because we have a husband and wife giving two perspectives on how they make outdoor parenting work. 

Name: Laura & Dennis
Location: MA, USA
Family Activities: Climbing, camping, hiking, downhill skiing, kayaking, canoeing. 
​Kids: 10 & 6
Work Schedule: ​​​ 2 full-time
Picture
Transitioning to parenthood:
  1. What outdoor activities did you do before you had kids? Same, just much more frequently before kids!​
  2. If you or your spouse were pregnant, did that person continue any of the activities and how did they modify the activity while pregnant?  Laura: I climbed until my harness didn’t fit anymore. Skiing stopped pretty early (3 mo pregnant). No ocean time on my kayak since pre-pregnancy. 
  3. If you do different activities after having kids, why is that? Laura: I’ve lost touch with friends who I did outdoor activities with. We engage in activities we can all participate in as a family. Dennis: We do most of the same activities, just much less frequently. There is much less time for day outings or weekends away due to school/work, kid's activities (classed, birthday parties, playdates, etc.). 
  4. How old were your kids when you started doing outdoor activities with them? Laura: First camping trip at 2.5, skiing at 3. Did lots of hikes with baby as carrier made it easy. Dennis: We had them try climbing around ages 3 or 4. ​
  5. What was your biggest challenge when you started doing outdoor activities with the kids? Laura: They love being outdoors. With skiing we have to tag team who is with what kid. They youngest needs more support. Dennis: Keeping the kids occupied and engaged, particularly downtime (such as setting up climbs) or waiting for their turn.
Outdoor parenting:
  1. How have these challenges changed as the kids got older?  Laura: Our oldest can ski and climb the same trails/routes we do. I no longer climb but my husband does. Typically, all four of us go so I can belay him and keep the youngest occupied as she waits for a turn. Dennis: As [our oldest] has gotten older, she has taken a genuine interest in climbing. Together with mental maturity, which means she requires less constant stimulation and is more patient. 
  2. Do you have trouble maintaining the kids interest in the activity (ie during a long hike) and if you do, how do you keep the kids interested?  Laura: When they were 4 and under, yes. Now they are happy and engaged during day trips. Dennis: They tend to stay interested on their own. But the kids getting tired is more of a challenge. Especially the little one, which will usually want to be carried at some point of the hike.  
  3. How do you fit the activities into your working life?  Laura: I only have time on the weekends. In the winter we ski almost every week - it’s something we all love. Summer activities like camping and hiking aren’t as regular. Dennis: It is very tough during the week. We mostly engage in outdoor activities on the weekends. Since COVID, we have had more time on weekdays, for things like local nature hikes and bike rides, just like lots of other families. 
  4. How do you balance outdoor activities with kids activities (organized sports, music, school)?  Laura: We’ve boxed all kid activities Into Saturday  morning or weekdays to leave Sundays open. Dennis: It’s very challenging. There just isn’t enough time for everything. There are constant trade-offs. We try our best to talk to the kids and see what they want. 
  5. How do you ensure that both of you can keep doing your outdoor activities? Laura: Pre-COVID my husband went to climbing gym every week at the same time. I just don’t have the copious free time I did before kids and opt to spend my limited free time on other things like gardening, socializing, and yoga. Dennis: We’ve been supportive of each other getting out for “grown up” activities (such as climbing without the kids). But it’s hard to be away from the family all day. 
  6. Have you ever received pushback on outdoor parenting from family, friends, or community? If so, how have you handled it? Laura: Not really. People ask questions as it can seem hard to get little kids engaged in outdoor activities but it has always felt like curiosity. Dennis: I wouldn’t say “pushback”. But there is often a perception by folks who don’t participate in outdoor activities like climbing or skiing, that these activities are dangerous. Explaining how these activities work (such as describing a climbing top rope setup) will often get folks to be less critical. 
Summary/Conclusion:
  1. What resources helped you figure out how to do these outdoor activities with your kids? (books, friends, groups, blogs, etc).  Laura: Mainly seeing friends do it and getting inspired to try with my own kids. Dennis: We’ve had friends who had kids before we did. So we learned a lot watching them interact with their kids while doing outdoor activities. 
  2. What is your favorite outdoor parenting hack? Laura: Sharing a ski pass when one parent has to be with baby in the lodge. Nature scavenger hunts on hikes on when waiting for turn climbing. Dennis: I’ve given my kids a little extra climbing motivation by putting candy inside plastic Easter eggs, and placing them on holds or ledges at various points of the climb (both outdoors and at climbing gyms). It does work, although it can backfire as well. One time, I did not bring the eggs, and my daughter was upset “But I want to find an egg!”
  3. What is your biggest outdoor parenting mistake?  Laura: You can’t do things the way you use to. Be flexible with yourself and your kids and have fun! Dennis: Georgia broke her leg skiing last winter. She got going too fast and took a tumble. I don’t think there was really anything I could have done to prevent it. But I kept replaying it in my head for a long time. Georgia has since fully recovered, and is rearing to get back on skis this winter.
  4. If you could give one piece of advice to other outdoor families, what would it be? Laura: Get your family out there,  it’s hard when they are wee little ones but I never regretted a single trip. Dennis: Your kids might not end up enjoying all the same activities you do. Show them why you love these activities, and maybe they will, too​
  5. What is your favorite piece of gear for outdoor parenting? Laura: For babies/toddlers a good supportive carrier for hikes. Ski harnesses were helpful with toddlers. Dennis: Not specifically outdoor gear, but definitely my favorite: a good camera (not a phone) to capture all those memories. Cameras on phones have come a long way, and obviously win for convenience. But a phone simply can’t match the image quality of a “real” camera in capable hands. I started getting into photography when our first child was born, and that interest has carried over to outdoor activities. My current camera is a mirrorless, full-frame Canon R. My favorite lens for outdoor activities is the 70-200mm, f2.8. It’s a big, heavy lens. But it lets you zoom in on the action. I can get close-up shots of my kids on the rock, or out on the water while standing on shore.
0 Comments

Interview: Scott Turner (Orienteering, Hiking, Skiing, Camping, Biking, ​Backpacking )

10/28/2020

0 Comments

 
This week we have an interview with an outdoor parent whose children are grown up, so he has the perspective of taking them outdoors through all the stages of childhood. He is also a very experienced at orienteering, which I think is a great way to get kids outside that I haven't tried yet with my kids. He also happens to be my uncle, and when I was a kid I got to go orienteering with them. Enjoy!

Name: Scott Turner
Location: Suburban Boston, MA, USA
Family Activities: hiking, orienteering, cross-country skiing (and a little downhill), car camping, swimming   
less regularly canoeing, bicycling on dedicated paths, hiking the AMC hut system, backpacking
​Kids: 38, 36, and 32
Work Schedule: ​I worked full time regular daytime hours. My wife was a homemaker full time until the kids entered 1st through 6th grade. She led their home schooling from that point through high school. When the youngest reached 11 years, she began part time work.​
Picture
Transitioning to parenthood:
  1. What outdoor activities did you do before you had kids? Together we enjoyed hiking, cross-country skiing, canoeing, bicycling, and swimming. We tried backpacking but my wife did not enjoy it. I had also done a good deal of small boat sailing earlier in my life.
  2. If you or your spouse were pregnant, did that person continue any of the activities and how did they modify the activity while pregnant? My wife transitioned from jogging to walking for her pregnancy.
  3. If you do different activities after having kids, why is that? A lot of things changed from 1978 until our first child was born four years later. We had returned to New England, got new jobs, met, courted, married, and settled in a suburban house. It's more noteworthy how little our activities changed.

    A significant change for me was that during my wife's first pregnancy I took up the sport of orienteering. I began to participate in the local orienteering competitions which were regularly scheduled in wooded areas around Boston. It combined running, which until then I had done on the roads, with map skills, which I had developed while backpacking.
  4. How old were your kids when you started doing outdoor activities with them? We may have waited a couple of months before taking them on trails in the hills, but essentially we went outdoors immediately. It was snowing when our first child came home from the hospital.
  5. What was your biggest challenge when you started doing outdoor activities with the kids? Executing a car camping trip for a week at a New Hampshire campground, with a variety of excursions, was a big effort, and once it rained the whole week!
Outdoor parenting:
  1. How have these challenges changed as the kids got older? We and the kids were involved in other activites -- church, dance, soccer, etc. that made time for activities in nature more scarce.
  2. Do you have trouble maintaining the kids interest in the activity (ie during a long hike) and if you do, how do you keep the kids interested?  Keeping them going during a long hike was definitely a thing. It helped to have an intermediate goal, and say, "In one mile we'll come to a rest spot and have a snack." We also had a couple of trail games that we played. Some of our long hikes were with cousins, which was great for preventing boredom.
  3. How do you fit the activities into your working life?  I would take the family or just a couple of the kids to an orienteering event on a Saturday or Sunday, as these were part-day activities in (mostly) local woods. Occasionally we would travel for a few hours to a big weekend orienteering event, camping overnight. A couple of the nicer events had square dancing in the evening.  The kids' favorite was a weekend at Pawtuckaway State Park in New Hampshire, which had regular orienteering, canoe orienteering, and an after dark "Vampire orienteering" event followed by smores..
    Occasionally I would take some of our kids with some of their friends for a hike, such as Mt. Monadnock.
    In the summers we would do at least a week of car camping that involved a good deal of hiking and sometimes canoeing.


  4. How do you balance outdoor activities with kids activities (organized sports, music, school)?  Those activities almost always took precedence. Given that the kids all either played soccer or had dance rehearsals, I can't recall how we got away for as many weekends as we did.
  5. If you have a partner, how do you ensure that both of you can keep doing your outdoor activities? My wife was content to keep in shape by walking in the neighborhood streets, and enjoy the more natural scenery during an occasional parents' or family getaway. We both consider aerobic exercise important. I would make it a priority to take care of the kids while she went for a walk, and she was wonderfully flexible in letting me spend half the Saturday orienteering. She also let me get out for 2 or 3 shortish runs on weekdays. For a while I was going for a two mile run after work with one of the kids.
  6. Have you ever received pushback on outdoor parenting from family, friends, or community? If so, how have you handled it? I don't think our friends understood that we were sending our little kids into unfamiliar woods on their own with just a map and compass.  :-)
    We attended church as a family very regularly on Sunday mornings. If we went away for a weekend, we would miss church of course, and my wife and I would kid ourselves about "playing hookey" from church. But no pushback. Massachusetts churches are grateful for whatever attendance and support they get.
Summary/Conclusion:
  1. What resources helped you figure out how to do these outdoor activities with your kids? (books, friends, groups, blogs, etc).  We both grew up in families that enjoyed hiking and car camping, and knew the basics. What led us to wonderful times wasn't so much "how to" guides, as friends, maps, articles and even travel guides that clued us in to great places. For what it's worth, the most memorable are: * White Mountains, NH * Baxter State Park, Maine * Appalachian Mountain Club Huts, NH * Fransted Family Campground, Franconia, NH * Umbagog Lake, New Hampshire & Maine * Kejimkujik National Park, Nova Scotia * Maine Wilderness Camps, Maine * Up North Orienteers Camping Weekend, NH​
  2. If you’re a writer, what are the blog posts, articles, books, videos that you have written/created that you think would most help other families? Recommended hikes with kids in the White Mountains
  3. What is your favorite outdoor parenting hack? Once we had kids, car camping assumed a more considerable role compared to backpacking. To make a great leap beyond the lightweight backpacking mattress I went to a local fabric store and bought 4" thick foam that was plenty long enough for my 6' sleeping bag. And similarly for my wife, except 5" thick. Sewed up a fabric cover over the foam and we parents had great mattresses. Kids with their smaller bones were content with the backpacking pads.
    I must mention a hack of a completely different kind. For our family, getting into the outdoors necessarily meant getting away from screens. What to do after dark? Invent and tell tall tales to one another. 
  4. What is your biggest outdoor parenting mistake?  Once we hiked from the valley up to the Franconia Ridge. We had rewarding snacks along; the problem was that they were not guarded sufficiently. Just as we were starting down again on the steepest part of the trail, our 8 year old son, normally a very willing hiker, developed such a pain in the gut that he could not proceed. Concerned that he might have a serious intestinal obstruction or appendicitis, we could not wait it out. I lifted the chunky kid and carried him down the mountain for at least 1/2 hour. Eventually he must have found the discomfort of being carried increasing to where it was comparable to his gut pain, which might have been easing. He allowed as how he could try to walk the rest of the way, and that it had been a mistake to eat the entire bag of m&ms!
  5. If you could give one piece of advice to other outdoor families, what would it be? Learn to have confidence in each of your kids, and thus teach them self-confidence.
  6. What is your favorite piece of gear for outdoor parenting? Karhu kid-size cross-country skis fit the budget and fit the kids when they were 5 to 7 years old. We had a couple of pairs and they were passed along from one child to the next. One child was so excited to have her own new skis that she went out in 5 degree weather and skied around the yard on her own for a half hour.
0 Comments

Socializing While Living in a Ski Van

10/26/2020

0 Comments

 
When you decide to be a ski bum sleeping in your car with your family instead of buying or renting out a house or staying in a hotel, it does have an impact on your ability to socialize as easily with friends. You can’t exactly invite people over for dinner at your place, to reciprocate when they invite you over, so it’s easy to feel guilty about that. Here is how we tried to handle it pre-Covid, although working full time and wrangling kids onto ski-teams every two weeks often made things too stressful to effectively follow through on these plans. As always, we’d love more ideas on how to make this work! 

Pre-covid, we would arrive at the ski resort early, maybe 7:30 or 8 AM, and get a table inside and have breakfast. We had a group of other families that would also get there early that we could talk to (if we didn’t end up spending all our time getting the kids into ski gear and sunscreen and fed).

After skiing, we would also hang out at the resort but this time it would be a bit more relaxed. Any of us who were done skiing for the day early would wait in the lodge and chat with other families or play games. We would try to have some extra beers in the cooler in case an adult friend wanted one. The best night was when our friend brought an electric fondue pot and we all shared fondue together.

In the evenings we would go to dinner at one of the restaurants in the hotel near the resort, which also happened to be near where our friends lived. Many times we’d see friends there and hang out with them, especially since one of the restaurants had seating in the lounge area of the hotel. We did get to know another family that had a truck camper and we started seeing them more often in the restaurants, which was nice. As a bonus, the hotel had wifi so we could download books to read or movies to watch in the van.

Our friends would often invite us over to their places for dinner or après-ski. We would try to bring a bottle of wine or something over to share but we didn’t always remember to have something with us, especially when the invitations were last minute, or if we were worried about liquids freezing in the van. 

In a perfect world, this is what we would recommend doing:
  • Bring extra food and drinks on all trips: look for things that you can share at the resort while you’re hanging out or have in case you get invited somewhere.
  • Bring a good board game or card game to share - smaller games are good to play at the resort if table space is limited.
  • If you are invited over, make sure you are good guests - help to cook and clean up.
  • Look for places to eat dinner where you know people and invite them to join you and also places where it’s acceptable to hang out for a while.
  • For crowded resorts (which never happened to us at Bear Vally) and when the weather is good, bring chairs and set up a tail-gate at your van and invite friends over.

During covid, we are going to need to focus on making time to hang out with friends outside when the weather is good and before it gets too cold at night. No more invitations to friend’s houses, but we will consider bringing snacks and drinks to share if people are comfortable with it. Unfortunately, we are probably going to need to refocus on how to eat in our van more and socialize within our family, such as more van-movie nights and playing games. But as long as we get lots of good days out there skiing it will be worth it!
Picture
Our van, in our favorite parking spot close to good dinner options and friends.
0 Comments

Backcountry Skiing with Kids

10/14/2020

0 Comments

 
Before we had kids, my husband and I enjoyed backcountry skiing. I wasn’t as good of a skier, but I loved the peace and quiet of skinning up a slope and spending the night in one of the Sierra Club huts with friends and exploring the runs near the hut. We are working to find ways to start doing that again with our kids - we will hopefully have some updates on it this winter as we try it out more. This post is part of our Skiing/Snowboarding page.

A note on this section: it is based more on research and less on experience than our average pages. My husband and I enjoyed backcountry skiing before we had kids but as of when this was written, we haven't done much with our kids yet. We have done plenty of tree skiing with our kids and have taken our oldest child on some side-country exploration with the Contour Startup Ski Touring Adapter, along with a friend whose daughter was on telemark. The rest of the information on gear is based on research.

First, safety: your kids cannot rescue you from an avalanche, except maybe if you have older teenagers, so you must be very careful about where you take them. The minimum age I’ve seen online for AIARE Level 1 classes ranges from 10-13, however I don’t feel my 10 year old would be strong enough to dig fast enough to rescue me and I would never want to put that responsibility on her. You know your kids best though, so make the decisions that are best for your family.

For younger kids, see if you can attend an avalanche awareness presentation for kids such as the ones given by the Nikolay Dodov Foundation. These sorts of presentations get the kids to start thinking about where avalanches can occur and what causes them, and the risks of getting caught in one.

Always bring a first aid kit and enough food and warm clothing to be prepared to handle the weather, especially when you’re hiking in tougher terrain such as in snow.

Backcountry touring setup options: (I have very small feet - 22.5 boots - so finding gear that fits small feet has been a battle for me since I started backcountry skiing)
  • The Contour Startup Ski Touring Adapter fits into your binding and gives you a releasable heel. 
    • It works with boot sole lengths from 245-305mm, which means the smallest boot size is about 21.5
    • For our family with small feet, this means that it didn’t fit our kids until our daughter was 10.
  • For skins, you can trim an old pair of adult skins to fit the kid’s skis.
    • Or sew tother scraps from what people cut off.
  • Jones Snowboards makes a splitboard for kids, but the only size available is for bigger kids.
  • Telemark (although boot size limitations seem to be similar to tech bindings so don't work for smaller kids).

Non-skiing/boarding options:
  • Snowshoes - kids skis are small so you can fit them in your pack
  • Bootpacking - KidProject.org recommends putting Yaktraks and micro-spikes on the kids boots to prevent slipping

DIY options:
  • From a comment on KidProject.org: try putting cross country boots on straight skis with skins attached to the skis to get your kid uphill and carry their downhill skis.
  • DIY kids splitboard setup
  • Telemark 
  • Modify an adult binding to fit a kids size boot.

How to start:
  • First, get your kids to enjoy skiing or boarding in the trees and get them to a point where you feel they are doing it very safely.
  • Next, try side-country gates or boot-packs at the resorts - get them to enjoy the benefits of putting some energy in to getting fresh tracks.
  • Finally, look for some very safe hills to play around on. 
    • Use the opportunity to look at your local avalanche website with your child and discuss the risks.
    • Make sure to focus on enjoying the hike, because it will take up most of the time. Check out our page on keeping kids entertained while hiking.
    • Also make sure the kids put on and take off layers appropriately while hiking and switching to going downhill - those skills are not instinctive and you don’t want to end up with a hypothermic kid.
    • Turn around if the avalanche danger looks higher than you expected, and talk about it with your kids. That might be the most valuable lesson for the trip.
​
As I mentioned, we currently don’t have much personal experience backcountry skiing with kids. Here are some of the other helpful links I have found on backcountry skiing with kids:
  • KidProject.org: one of their kids even competes in SkiMo.
  • DadDispatches.com
  • YukonBackcountrySkiing.com
0 Comments

Interview: Shannon (Skier and Backpacker)

6/15/2020

0 Comments

 
This week I'm excited to introduce our friend Shannon. She and her wife are masters of organizing group camping trips, which we have been lucky to be part of for many years now. (They created the camping spreadsheet I shared last week). They have also started taking their kids backpacking and skiing, while impressively managing sports and activity schedules. She is right about how friends help kids hike more - when my kids hike with them they go much farther!

Name: Shannon
Location: Bay Area, CA, USA
Family Activities: hike, camp, backpack, cross country ski, downhill ski
​Kids: 5 and 9
Work Schedule: ​1 full time, 1 newly self employed part time
Picture
Transitioning to parenthood:
  1. What outdoor activities did you do before you had kids? More Skiing and backpacking, kayaking, plus all that we do with kids
  2. If you or your spouse were pregnant, did that person continue any of the activities and how did they modify the activity while pregnant? Not really, we got a cushier sleeping pad for car camping. 
  3. If you do different activities after having kids, why is that? We haven’t taken the kids paddling yet, but we should be able to do that with our 9 year old soon. Our schedules are busier now with sports and kid activities, so we don’t necessarily prioritize our outdoor activities. We waited until age 7 or so to introduce downhill skiing, but did enjoy cross country skiing when they were young.
  4. How old were your kids when you started doing outdoor activities with them? We started camping and hiking when the kids were just a few months old.
  5. What was your biggest challenge when you started doing outdoor activities with the kids? Working around the nap schedule! Trying to schedule a hike around a toddler’s nap is tough. 
Outdoor parenting:
  1. How have these challenges changed as the kids got older? Our schedules have gotten busier! Soccer, swimming, softball teams, birthday parties, etc. The kids are less enthusiastic about hiking now, but that usually dissipates after the first quarter mile. 
  2. Do you have trouble maintaining the kids interest in the activity (ie during a long hike) and if you do, how do you keep the kids interested? Candy. Lots of candy. Also, we just introduced the kids to geocaching and the kids are surprisingly interested! The best thing is having friends on a hike! Chatting with friends makes the miles fly by! Finding ways to make things fun by singing and playing games while hiking helps. 
  3. How do you fit the activities into your working life? We try to get out for a hike every week. During our 2020 Shelter in Place we tried to get out one midweek afternoon each week for a hike. 
  4. How do you balance outdoor activities with kids activities (organized sports, music, school)? It’s hard! Our balance leans toward a greater commitment to team sports at the detriment of our outdoor adventures. That said, we don’t have a problem with taking off on a Friday after lunch a few times a year to get an early start to a camping weekend. 
  5. If you have a partner, how do you ensure that both of you can keep doing your outdoor activities? We take turns. She likes running so I make sure to be on kid duty so she can run. I play soccer, so she’s on duty then. When we’re outdoors together, we’re both on duty...with some breaks.
Summary/Conclusion:
  1. What resources helped you figure out how to do these outdoor activities with your kids? (books, friends, groups, blogs, etc). We started with Strollerhikes.com when our oldest was a baby. Then we found a core group of friends who shared our interest in getting outdoors with the kids. Mostly we relied on our outdoor skills from before kids. 
  2. What is your favorite outdoor parenting hack? Put the baby/toddler in a snowsuit for chilly nights when camping. Bring extra blankets to pile on in the middle of the night.
  3. What is your biggest outdoor parenting mistake? Not pushing the kids hard enough. They can do so much more than we think they can. 
  4. If you could give one piece of advice to other outdoor families, what would it be? It is ok to start small, within your comfort zone. Just get out!
  5. What is your favorite piece of gear for outdoor parenting? A small solar powered inflatable lantern. It is lightweight enough for backpacking, but creates a lovely soothing glow in the tent.
0 Comments

Interview: Karl Klemmick (Skier, snowboarder, backpacker, canoist, climber, biker)

6/1/2020

0 Comments

 
For our second interview we are excited to share Karl's experience as an outdoor dad. We have known him and his family for a few years. They are part of a group of families we go on group camping trips with a few times a year, until they moved back to Colorado. I have always been impressed with how they find the time to get into the mountains so often while they both worked full time jobs and also with the impressive hiking stamina of their daughter.

Name: Karl Klemmick
Location: Boulder, Co, USA
Family Activities: Mostly downhill skiing, snowboarding, hiking, backpacking, camping, biking, and hot springing with a little canoeing, climbing, mountain biking mixed in.  We travel whenever we can make it happen. Recently we have been working on much longer backpacking / trekking trips with a fair amount of success. 
​Kids: 9 year old daughter
Work Schedule: ​Usually we’re both full time, Currently one full time and one not working. We have changed this equation many times over the years.
Picture
Transitioning to parenthood:
  1. What outdoor activities did you do before you had a kid? Pretty much the same with less day hiking and more climbing, mountain biking and trail running.
  2. When your spouse was pregnant, she continue any of the activities and how did she modify the activity while pregnant? We tried to keep up the outdoor activities.  We even planned a backpacking trip at about 5 months, but afterward we discovered that she needed to back off a bit.  She also gave up canoeing and climbing and any other activity that had a potential for jostling.
  3. If you do different activities after having a kid, why is that? Our activities changed and how we approached those activities changed, partly to accommodate the safety and abilities of our child, but also because we were getting older and slowing down a bit.
  4. How old was your kid when you started doing outdoor activities with them? 4 months.
  5. What was your biggest challenge when you started doing outdoor activities with your kid? Finding that balance between fun and exhaustion.
Outdoor parenting:
  1. How have these challenges changed as your kid got older? I’m not sure it has. We still work hard at pushing our child’s limits without harming them or making the activity miserable. Every year she can do more, so we do more.
  2. Do you have trouble maintaining the kid's interest in the activity (ie during a long hike) and if you do, how do you keep the kid interested? Hiking games! From Fetch the stick to 20 Questions to Name an Ingredient.  The games have changed as she has aged, but they are still very useful as the mileage increases. 
  3. How do you fit the activities into your working life? Anyway we can (from maxing out our weekends to taking a six month sabbatical).
  4. How do you balance outdoor activities with kid's activities (organized sports, music, school)? We have avoided organized sports and have done everything we can to keep our weekends open. 
  5. How do you and your partner ensure that both of you can keep doing your outdoor activities? We have settled on a group of activities that we can all enjoy together. 
  6. Have you ever received pushback on outdoor parenting from family, friends, or community? No.
Summary/Conclusion:
  1. What resources helped you figure out how to do these outdoor activities with your kid? (books, friends, groups, blogs, etc) We have pretty much learned by trial and error.  We just kept doing what we liked to do and tweaked things along the way. Early on, I was also involved in a Bay Area group called Stroller Hikes, that organized mid-week hikes with the littles. They are still up and running and can be found at strollerhikes.com.
  2. If you’re a writer, what are the blog posts, articles, books, videos that you have written/created that you think would most help other families?  Back when our daughter was little and I had more time, I published a blog with tons of stories and photos from our earlier adventures. It’s quite a good snapshot of our transition from an adventurous couple to adventurous parents. I currently have aspirations of adding some of our more recent long treks and the planning involved in making them happen. The blog can be found at somehowlost.com
  3. What is your favorite outdoor parenting hack? Just get outside. Go early and often.
  4. What is your biggest outdoor parenting mistake? This one is hard.  I don’t want to say we didn’t make any mistakes, but honestly none of them mattered. We now have a daughter that is just as addicted to the outdoors as we are.

See all of our interviews here, where you can browse through them by keywords and locations.
0 Comments

Where to park your ski van

5/11/2020

0 Comments

 
After a 5 month break, we are back with more page updates and some exciting plans to expand the content of OKH in 2020.

OKH changes:
  • If you go to the pages for Activity Types you'll see they no longer links to the blog pages. They are now stand-alone information pages that also have a change log for each section, so you can see how recently it was updated and also track our progress improving the pages.
  • Each week as we add new site content we'll release it in the blog at the same time, so you can subscribe to it in your blog reader if you'd like. It is also a great place for you to give us your feedback on the information. We'll monitor the comments and add your suggestions onto the main page later. All changes will be tracked that in the change tracker at the bottom of each page.
  • Much more in the works to be announced later!

For this week, check out our new page update on "Where to park your ski van". This was originally written in December, but a family emergency derailed posting plans for a while. 

The best part of sleeping in a van or RV while skiing is the flexibility in where you can stay each night, depending on the weather or where the good snow is. Here are some tips on where to stay:

Legal parking:
  • SNO-Park
    • Oregon SNO-PARK permits, Idaho Park-n-ski permits, and California SNO-PARK permits all have reciprocity
    • You can't overnight park at all of the California SNO-Parks, look for posted signs that prohibit it
  •  ​Resorts that specifically allow it
    • There are some on-line lists of resorts that allow parking, but the best bet is to do a google search before you head to the resort for the most up to date info, since it sometimes changes
  • Walmart - depending on the location
  • BLM Land 
  • Look for a campground that is open in the area, although most are closed for the winter
  • RV campground - usually more expensive
  • Hostels - some allow RV hookup and use of a kitchen for cooking

Stealth camping:
  • Look for places that don’t specifically outlaw it - look at town ordinances
    • For example, many Colorado ski towns specifically outlaw it
  • Make your van look as stealthy as possible, park your van late and move it early
  • Look for resorts that don’t specifically have a rule against parking 
  • Don't use uncovered Reflectrix in windows - cover it with dark tape or something, since it it makes it look more obvious that you're sleeping in there 

Other tips:
  • Find places to get showers every few days if you don’t have showers, or place to get laundry done.
    • Camp at a RV campground or hostel, or splurge and get a hotel room for a night
  • Park near a place that has bathroom access - especially useful with kids
    • Many SNO-Parks in California have pit toilets
    • Park near a hotel or lodge with bathrooms in common areas

It feels weird at first if you have not done it before, especially with kids. I had visions of getting in trouble with the police, which I didn’t want to do with kids. But it gets easier to do over time, and after a hard day of skiing all anyone wants to do is sleep anyway. 

0 Comments

Gear storage in a Sienna ski van

6/29/2019

0 Comments

 
One of the challenges of using a Toyota Sienna as a ski van is how to fit all of the gear in the car while sleeping in it. It’s also important to minimize the time needed to move gear around while switching from driving mode to sleeping mode.

We do this by using a trailer hitch storage box like the Stowaway2 and a ski rack on the top of the car.  
Picture
We fit the bigger skis on the roof and the little kid skis in the trailer hitch box. Other items we put in the box are food, helmets, poles, backcountry gear (skins, probe, beacon), and ski backpacks. 

For storage inside the car, the big thing we did to make it easier was remove the console between the front two seats. We covered the hole that was left with a custom piece of carpet that we bought online in a color to match the car. We added two D-anchors in case we wanted to anchor anything between the seats and these are bolted down to the anchors that held the console in place.
Picture
Inside the car we keep clothes bags, any personal items (books, flashlights, etc), and ski boots, to keep them a bit warmer at night. During driving mode, these items are right behind the driver and passenger seats and anchored down with an elastic cargo net that clips onto the attachment points for the cargo seats (that is left behind after we took the cargo seats out of the car).

When we switch to sleeping mode, this stuff can be put between the two front seats, on the seats, or in front of the seats. Usually we put the car seats on the front seats first, then put the items in the spaces around them, before setting up the cot.

With this plan, the amount of time spent moving stuff around for set up and take down of the beds is minimized, and we've been able to fit in everything we need for a full week-long trip in the van.
0 Comments

Staying warm in a van in winter

6/13/2019

0 Comments

 

​Our biggest concern about sleeping in a van during ski season was staying warm, specifically keeping the kids warm. 

We considered propane heaters, both portable ones (like a Mr Buddy heater) and permanently installing one in the wall of the van. We also found one that runs on the car’s gasoline. However we were very concerned about carbon monoxide poisoning, especially if the car gets covered in snow. 

We looked at electric blankets hooked up to a big battery, but it seemed that it might not last all night and we’d be constantly recharging the battery. And we couldn’t recharge it in one day from a small solar panel on the roof. 

In the end we just decided to see how warm we could stay without extra heat during the night. We figured we could ease into the ski season by starting when it was still warmer weather and if we found the weather getting too cold we could drive 45 min down the mountain to where it’s warmer and sleep there overnight. 

Our plan was to have everyone sleep in sleeping bags. We heated up the car as much as possible before bed (after inspecting the exhaust pipe to confirm it wasn’t blocked). We bought a carbon monoxide detector just in case and attached it to the inside of the van. In the morning if it was too cold we could make sure there was no new snow and then turn the car on to warm it up before getting the kids out of bed. 

The sleeping bags we used were all 10 to 17F (-12 to -8C) bags in good condition, except one 20F (-7C) bag in poor condition which was for an adult who claims not to get cold easily. We also insulated all the windows. We bought a Weather Tech windshield cover.  We made custom covers for all the other windows using Reflectix that was cut to fit the window. Then we covered one side of each piece with black Gorilla tape. This makes one side good for hot weather (reflecting the sun) and one good for cold weather (absorbing the heat) and also makes the pieces stiffer so they fit in the window easier and last longer. Also when the black side is facing out it makes it less obvious that someone is sleeping there. We usually parked the van between other cars in a sheltered location, to minimize the impact of windchill. 

The result was that we were usually about 15F (9C) warmer inside the van in the morning than it was outside, so we ended up staying pretty warm. We believe that this is in large part due to good insulation in the van walls, along with the window insulation, and also because of the small space with 4 people in it. We have been comfortable down to 10F (-12C) in the van. The coldest night we have spent in the Van was -19F (-28C) outside -5F (-20C) inside, and we decided that was way too cold. 

Interestingly, we did spend one night without the kids and found the temperature difference from outside to inside was only a few degrees F (1C) so the kids are important to keeping the van warm. 

I started playing with temperature loggers to document the temperatures we are seeing. Here’s a graph of outside vs inside the van overnight:
Picture
The one other backup we bought but haven’t used much are some electric hand warmers. They are nice in the sleeping bag if you put them in a sock so you don’t get burned. Unfortunately the -19F (-28C) night we didn’t have them with us and they definitely would have been nice to have. 

Next up, how we store all of our gear in the van, both for driving mode and sleeping mode.

----------------------------------------
Details on the sleeping bags we use:
  • Feathered Friends Petrol Nano 10 (for the mom) 
  • REI Sub-Kilo (for the dad) 
  • REI Women’s magma 17 (for the 9 year old girl) 
  • Big Agnes Little Red (for the 6 year old boy) 
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Categories

    All
    Babies
    Backpacking
    Biking
    Book Review
    Camping
    Canoeing
    Car Camping
    Climbing
    Dad
    General Advice
    Hiking
    Homeschooling
    Interview
    Kayaking
    Kids Of All Ages
    Mom
    New Parent
    Orienteering
    Outdoor Inspiration
    Pregnancy
    Sienna Ski Van
    Skiing
    Small Kids
    Snowboarding
    Website Updates

    OKH

    Two Silicon Valley engineers who have had a love of the outdoors since childhood. Parents of two small kids, spending our free time exploring the outdoors with them.

    New? Start here!

    RSS Feed

  • Activity Type
    • Backpacking
    • Biking
    • Camping
    • Hiking
    • Skiing/Snowboarding >
      • Sienna Ski Van
    • Climbing
    • Travel (Coming Soon!)
  • General Advice
  • Interviews
  • Blog
  • Outdoor Inspration
  • About
    • Contact us