by Jay Hardwig

Nothing can put the crimp in your backpacking plans quite like having a kid. Don’t get me wrong: I love my little squirt. At three years old, he’s the perfect mix of rowdy charm and fresh-faced innocence. I’m as proud a papa as has ever walked these hills, and I cherish him more than even the comfiest bunk or the most well-worn pair of boots. But I’ll kid you not: He makes it hard to get into the woods.

Heck, the kid makes it hard to get to the grocery store. That’s all right. That’s what he’s supposed to do. It’s his god-given right. But if a toddler makes picking up a pound of coffee and a gallon of milk difficult, imagine what it means when you’re trying to crest Thunderhead.

I’m no stranger to a tough time on the trail-hell, if it wasn’t at least a little bit hard, it wouldn’t be worth going. I’ve made it through busted gear, blisters twice the size of a $5.99 tamale plate (rice and beans included), and canned chili that would make my dog turn up his snout in disgust. I’ve brushed dead mice out of my pack and live ones out of my hair, eaten two pounds of peanut butter at a single sitting just to get it out of my pack, and spent the better part of a lovely summer afternoon trapped inside a Smoky Mountain shelter by an angry black bear. But I’ve not yet managed an overnight with my three-year-old.

Oh, I’m sure there are a few grizzlies among you who will snort and snuffle at this admission, who will question my grit and resolve. (Go ahead. You won’t be the first.) Some of you have doubtless dragged your kid up the hill at six months (or three); others have taken ten-night trips with your two-year old. A few among you may well have given birth on Rocky Mountain peaks, with bluebottle flies and mountain goats attending. You swaddled the newborn in polypropylene before resting him gently in your titanium soup bowl, and six hours later you were out collecting firewood. I salute you, but I am not that man.

When I moved from Texas to Western North Carolina, I envisioned a life led deep in the woods. “I’m trading flat brown for steep green,” I told my friends with pride, and dusted off my pack. That I had an infant seemed a scant impediment; he would grow, after all.

You won‘t blame me for not overnighting with an infant. A baby needs to eat every two hours and trail mix won’t do. Oh sure, his bloodcurdling screams might have chased off the skunks, but would have done little to foster the quiet contemplation that makes the mountains so appealing. Besides, how was I going to lug a Diaper Genie up the hill?

I realize that there are scores of backpacks out there designed to carry youngsters, but consider the weight. You expect me to spend hundreds of dollars on an ultralight sleeping bag, switch to a two-ounce flashlight, pack just the right amount of dehydrated beans, and then add ten pounds of baby to my load? That’s water weight, you know. Hell on the shoulders.

In time, of course, Eli was walking on his own. Once he conquered the broad expanse of the Hardwig living room and had a few successful forays into the backyard, I put him on a mountain trail and turned him loose. I’m proud to say he loved it. It was a whole new world. The packed earth, the moss-bitten rocks, the sun falling slantwise through the trees: He absorbed it all with a beatific smile, and made nary a fuss during the two-hour hike. By the time our trek was over, we had covered almost eighty feet of North Carolina’s most scenic country.

Even as his dexterity increased, our distance did not. It is the great good luck of the three-year-old mind to be endlessly curious, wondering what is under that rock, behind that tree, under that rock again. (And what happens, pray tell, when you put that rock behind that tree?) And while there is something beautiful in his miniaturist’s appreciation of nature, his eye for detail, his refusal to tie meaning to mileage, there is something maddening about it as well. Call me a boor, but part of the thrill of the hike, to my mind, is in the motion: I like to feel my legs pumping, hear my heart pounding, see what lies beyond the next ridge. A three-year-old does not yet have a concept of beyond the next ridge, and is happy with the world as it lies before him. Profound, yes, but frustrating too.

This will all change, and before I know it. The day is coming, soon, when we’ll take our first overnight trip together. My pack may look a little different-more apple juice and cheese crackers, I’m guessing, less falafel and garlic powder-but it’ll be nice to wear it just the same. I won’t expect big things. If we make it two miles into the woods before we plop down for the night, I’ll be a happy man. I’ll roll out his bedroll, keep him a safe distance from the camp stove, and tell him stories about all the stars in the sky. I’ll tell him about the trees and the woods, about beauty and solitude, about the value of a world removed from varnish, artifice, and pitch. And if I stop talking long enough to allow it, he may even learn a few things on his own-and we all know that’s the truest form of knowledge.

I look forward to it. I look forward to his first pair of boots, his first backpack, his first turn to carry the rain gear. I look forward to the peaks and the valleys and the places in-between. With any luck, we’ll share the redwoods and the rhododendron, the hot sharp crackle of campfires and the cool crisp silence of the morning. We’ll crest a few mountains, and cross a few valleys too. We’ll run the ridges in between.

And if he declines my invitation, if all he wants is a skateboard and an X-Box and a bag of Doritos and the living room couch, I’ll go by myself, and tell him what I saw. But I won’t do it yet: His baby sister turns one next month.

Jay Hardwig lives in Asheville, North Carolina. He can be reached at smardwig@charter.net.