Rhode Island Feeds

Need another reason to get outside with your kids? It’s good for their eyes!

Children who spend more time outdoors are less likely to be near-sighted. This is a correlation, not proven cause-and-effect; my grandmother would tell you the real cause for better eyesight is that the outdoorsy kids spend less time reading books in dim light. Still, it seems like a good reason to put on the snow boots and head outside.

I learned this tidbit from the book Welcome to Your Child’s Brain, by neuroscientists Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang (Bloomsbury, 2011). Here’s how they summarize the research:

“One study compared six- and seven-year-old children of Chinese ethnicity living in Sydney, Australia, with those living in Singapore. The rate of myopia was more than eight times lower in Sydney (3.3 percent) than in Singapore (29.1 percent), despite similar rates of parental myopia (about 70 percent in at least one parent). Children in Sydney spent fourteen hours per week outside, on average, compared with three hours per week for children in Singapore.”

The authors also cite a U.S. study that found that “two hours per day of outdoor activity reduces the risk of myopia by about a factor of four compared with less than one hour per day.”

The incidence of near-sightedness has been on the rise over the last few decades in many countries, suggesting that something more than genetics alone is at work, Aamodt and Wang say. Although the reason for the positive association between time spent outdoors and good eyesight is unknown, they offer the hypothesis that bright outdoor light may provide better conditions than dim indoor light for the development of the correct distance between a child’s pupil and retina. Since earlier generations spent many hours outside every day, Aamodt and Wang say, our eyes may develop better if we spend more of our childhood outdoors.

Playing armchair neuroscientist, I wonder if spending time outside also helps because kids are focusing on objects at a range of distances, rather than staring for long periods at a book or computer screen at the same distance from their eyes. Aamodt and Wang don’t address that question, but I know where my grandmother would stand.



Learn more
- Check out Aamodt and Wang’s blog, Welcome to Your Brain.


Great Kids, Great Outdoors is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson. Heather wrote this post.

When I was a little kid, getting dressed for a winter’s day outdoors started with putting on a union suit. My father bought us full-body long underwear, complete with buttoned “trap doors,” from an Army-Navy surplus store. The suits were red, made of wool, and — at least on my skin — terribly scratchy. “If they’re good enough for the 10th Mountain Division,” my father said whenever I complained, “they’re good enough for you.”

If you’re of a certain age, the outdoor clothing you wore as a child may also have had a World War II lineage. Which may mean that you, too, were present at the revolution in outdoor clothing that took place in the latter decades of the 20th century. As we grew into young adults, new petroleum-based fabrics — stretchy, breathable, water-resistant, warm when wet — transformed the outdoor experience. From base layers to outerwear, from our feet to our heads and hands, we bought “technical” clothing that kept us warmer and drier, weighed less in our packs, and didn’t restrict our movement on the slopes or cliffs.

One of the companies in the “technical” clothing vanguard was Patagonia, whose founder, Yvon Chouinard, had revolutionized climbing gear in the 1960s. In 1980 the company introduced long underwear made from polypropylene, a synthetic fiber that had been used in marine ropes and disposable diapers. “Polypro” insulated without absorbing moisture. And though it acquired a fearsome stink after a season of hard use, it didn’t itch. In its company history, Patagonia calls itself “the first company to teach the concept of layering to the outdoor community,” and my consumer’s experience backs up their claim.

As revolutions often do, this one moved down to children. Again, Patagonia led the way, designing outdoor clothing out of its new fabrics for babies and children. “No union suits for this one!” I wrote to a climbing friend after her daughter was born in the early 1980s, attaching my note to a soft fleece bunting.

Three decades later, families reap the benefits of ongoing research in outdoor fabrics. The clothing we buy for our children to wear outdoors comes from a wide variety of manufacturers in many styles, sizes, and price points. We are the beneficiaries, as well, of a continuing search for what Patagonia calls “the cleanest line” — the most sustainable approach to the environment, including the gear and clothing that we purchase and use. Companies use recycled plastics in their synthetic fabrics, work with cotton growers to reduce and eliminate pesticides, and track the environmental impact of their products, from the manufacturing process to our front doors.

So I was intrigued when someone from Icebreaker, a company I hadn’t heard of before, contacted me a few months ago. The company, based in New Zealand, has manufactured outdoor clothing in merino wool since 1994. They offered to send me some samples and to talk to me about the development of their children’s clothing line. After speaking with Michelle Mitchell, the general manager of Icebreaker’s kids business unit, I have a sense that the revolution is continuing — but also circling back in interesting, even surprising, ways.

Like U.S. companies Ibex and SmartWool, which also started in the 1990s, Icebreaker is pursuing research in non-synthetic fabrics such as wool. “In New Zealand, everyone grew up wearing traditional itchy wool long underwear,” Mitchell told me — and moved away from it, just as I did, with deep relief. But recent advances in fiber technology mean that the merino wool used by these companies is not the same stuff that raised red welts on my skin. I was able to see the advances with my own eyes. Virgil, who also has sensitive skin, wore the shirt that Icebreaker sent him for several days in a row without complaint and without an itch. And the socks didn't stink after even days of wear. Now that’s progress.

High-performance clothing for children is also high-cost, however, and children can outgrow clothing in one season. Buying large works especially well for base layers, giving children several years of use before they outgrow an item. We’ve also been the grateful recipients of hand-me-down synthetic long underwear, fleece, and outerwear for our children since they were born, and we make a point of hitting local ski and gear swaps. The long underwear that Virgil is wearing this winter was worn by four kids before him, and it’s still good enough to pass along to a smaller child.

I wasn’t surprised to learn from Mitchell that Icebreaker created its children’s line after the people who worked there started having children. At first, employees sewed baby versions of the company’s merino wool tops and bottoms out of sample fabric and gave them as baby presents. Getting a “baby Icebreaker” became something of a company tradition.

Mitchell admits that Icebreaker’s kids’ line is a small part of the company’s overall business. But she believes that the benefits of high-quality outdoor clothing are even greater for children than for adults. “Good gear makes a huge difference if you’re taking kids outside on adventures,” she said. “Kids overheat so easily and get so miserable if they’re too hot or cold. You want them to stay warm even if they’re wet.” If children are comfortable, she believes, they’ll enjoy being outside — “and we’re passionate about getting kids outside.”

Getting children into the outdoors, keeping them safe, taking care of the environment. That's a revolution I can join.

Learn more
...about children's clothing and environmental initiatives at
- Patagonia
- Icebreaker
- Ibex (no separate children's line)
- SmartWool (check out "our values" in the "Discover" section of the website)

Photo: Virgil, dressed in hand-me-down synthetic long underwear, fleece-lined water resistant ski pants, a wool shirt, wool socks, and fleece mittens — and happy even when down.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson. Kristen wrote this post.

Last winter, for a post here on teaching cross-country skiing, I interviewed a coach in our area Bill Koch League (BKL), an after-school and weekend Nordic program for more than 400 local kids. The program impressed me, and it seemed like fun. Virgil thought so, too, especially after hearing me describe the skills games the kids played. He didn’t know that “gorilla walking” — striding forward in a slight crouch and swinging arms “like a gorilla” — helped kids learn a classic cross-country ski technique or that playing ski-tag helped them become comfortable moving in many directions on skis. He just thought it was something he’d like to do, too.

We were too late for last year’s program, but throughout the winter I’d often see kids wearing the program’s hats or jackets out on the trails. This year we signed Virgil up early for the one-day program on Tuesdays. I volunteered to be a parent coach, too. We splurged on new skis and poles for Virgil, plus a hat with the program logo. Then we waited for the snow to come.

In late January, we’re still waiting for decent snow. I won’t lie: I’ve dreaded many a Tuesday since late November. What can you with a group of a dozen 8- and 9-year olds when there’s no snow? When it’s raining out? When the snow that we did have, briefly, is now mostly natural slushee?

This past Tuesday, after a warm front carrying heavy rain had blown through, I arrived at the practice with Virgil, our gear, and a healthy dose of skepticism. “There’s hardly any snow,” Virgil moaned. “This won’t be any fun.”

I didn’t think it would be any fun either, but I couldn’t tell him that. Instead, I told him to get dressed. I gave myself the same command, and we joined our little group, where a high school skier would be helping me coach that day.

As soon as I was out there, though, surrounded by the other kids, some of them looking as reluctant as Virgil, I stopped noticing the bare patches of ground and started focusing on what we were going to do. The remaining snow, saturated with water, offered easy gliding. Relatively warm temperatures meant that a sideways tumble into a slush puddle was all wet silliness and no risk of hypothermia. When we sent the kids down a short little hill and their skis sent out sprays of slush, we knew enough to send them down into the slush pool again, and again.

“I’m completely soaked!” Virgil crowed happily back in the car, as he pulled off each item of wet clothing and let it fall to the floor with a liquid thumph. “I’m not sure that was skiing,” he said. “But it sure was fun.”

He and I both learned (or re-learned) a classic lesson on Tuesday: You don’t need much to have fun outdoors, even in the winter, even in a sloppy, messy winter. You just have to open the door and get out.

Here are some more ideas and tips for fun on skis, whether they’re Nordic or downhill, in good snow years or bad.


At home
- Let kids wear their boots (Nordic or downhill) and play “space adventurer” even before you leave for the slopes, says Billie Munro Audia, a Safety Ambassador on the ski patrol at Vermont’s Okemo Mountain Resort who has also taught skiing to children in Colorado and elsewhere in New England. Becoming familiar with the equipment is the first step toward becoming comfortable with the sport.
- Celebrate snow, or pray for more, by doing a “snow dance” in your yard. Encourage kids to put on their skis for the celebration.

In the car
- Keep a bag of spare clothing in the car with hat, mittens, socks, extra mid-layers, and underwear (both the long and regular variety). It can come in handy when you arrive at a ski area and realize that you've left the mittens behind, or at the end of a day of skiing, when everything your child is wearing is soaked. You can also keep snacks and juice boxes or water in the bag, for quick pick-me-ups.

On the snow
- Children love humor, songs, silly word play. Put that fun to use teaching the basics of skiing. When Audia teaches downhill skiing to children, she encourages them to “walk like a penguin” (ski tips turned out, walk forward by bringing one ski tail forward at a time); make “French fries” (skis pointing forward and parallel, about shoulder width apart); and a make a “slice of pizza” (aim ski tips together and widen the distance between the ski tails). The vivid images stick with kids even better than pizza and French fries at lunch.

On the mountain or trail
- Falling happens. It helps kids to know that falling down is part of learning. “Blaming snow snakes for falls works wonders,” says Audia. “You know snow snakes, right? Those hard-to-see white snakes that pop up from the snow, grab your ski pants, and make you fall?” Keep the light touch by making a game out of getting up.
- Play games. Children learn by playing. To help kids practice transferring their weight on downhill turns, Audia plays Follow the Leader. We ended our practice on Tuesday by playing Capture the Flag. Ski poles stuck into the soggy ground served as our flags. Virgil and the others moved tentatively at first, but quickly forgot that they were on skis. I watched Virgil glide past the sentries (he was imagining himself a Viking warrior, he told me later), capture the other team’s pole and make a dash for safety. It was the most confidently he had skied all day. And he was smiling.

Photos courtesy of Ford Sayre Nordic Program and Mt. Snow Ski Resort.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson. Kristen wrote this post.

Snow conditions at the Highland Center were perfect last weekend for kids to sled and play in the fort outside the lodge, and perfect for parents and older children to snowshoe Mount Willard and cross-country ski at nearby Bretton Woods. But the icing on the cake for me was a 50-minute massage (on a heated massage table, no less) at the lodge Saturday afternoon.

We brought our daughter’s trusty purple sled from home, but I noticed a toboggan in the entryway of the lodge, ready to be borrowed. I was also grateful for the snow fort right across from the entrance. We stumbled upon it by chance while exploring the mountains of snow left by plows that clear the path, and our 2-year-old loved peeking through the window slots at people walking by. On the final morning of our visit, she also enjoyed a hike around the lake behind the lodge, mostly being carried in the backpack, but hiking some on her own, checking out tracks. (Child carriers, hiking poles, and snowshoes are among the items available for guests to borrow for free from the lodge’s L.L. Bean gear room.)

On this visit, we stayed in the Balsam Fir room, the name of which was a bit of a mouthful for our daughter. I suggested we call it the Christmas tree room. The name was fitting, for it gave us a great gift: the perfect mix of introducing our daughter to the pleasures of the natural world in winter and giving ourselves a treat at the same time.

If you’re dreaming of a getaway, check conditions at AMC’s lodges.

Great Kids, Great Outdoors is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson. Heather wrote this post.

My daughter first visited an AMC hut when she was in the womb, prompting slightly nervous questions from the croo about my due date. Now that she can hike in on her own two feet, we’ve revisited that hut—the family-friendly Lonesome Lake—and we’re eager to explore new options.

AMC offers many opportunities to arrange your own outdoor summer traditions, like hiking to the huts. But it also makes the planning easier with programs for families and teens and volunteer-managed family-friendly camps. Here’s a quick summary of what’s available.

Notice that for Teen Wilderness Adventures, a special discount is being offered through the end of January, and for Three Mile Island, applications are due by February 1.

AMC Family Adventure Camps
AMC offers two types of family adventure camps, focused on children of different ages. The five-day outdoor adventure programs, designed for families with children ages 5 to 12, are based at AMC lodges in New Hampshire and Maine, and offer guided daily activities like hiking, paddling, and nature study, with meals, lodging, and evening programs included. This year, AMC’s Cardigan Lodge will host a new two-night series for families with kids ages 2 to 5. It too will include nature exploration, meals, and lodging.

Teen Wilderness Adventures
For older kids (12 to 18), consider these 4- to 20-night backcountry hiking, paddling, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, and rock climbing adventures. Choices include trips organized by age, activity, and location. If you book by January 31, you can save 20 percent (in addition to your member discount if you’re an AMC member).

Teen Trail Crews
AMC offers teenagers the chance to learn new skills while working on trails for one to four weeks in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the north woods of Maine. Many crews camp in the backcountry near the trails.

Three Mile Island
This volunteer-managed shorefront camp on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire has a main lodge building and 47 kerosene-lantern-lit cabins. It offers meals, weekly conservation speakers, and a wonderful spot to swim, canoe, kayak, sail, and hike with your family. The season is from June 23 to August 25, and all applications postmarked by February 1 receive equal consideration. Kids must be at least 4 years old.

Echo Lake Camp
This volunteer-managed waterfront camp near Acadia National Park in Maine has a main lodge building and platform tents. It offers day and evening programs, meals, and a great location to swim, canoe, kayak, sail, and hike with your family. The season is from June 30 to September 1, and all applications postmarked between March 1 and April 1 receive equal consideration. Kids must be at least 4 years old.

Cold River Camp
This volunteer-managed camp in the beautiful, undeveloped Evans Notch area of the White Mountain National Forest has a central lodge and single, double, and family cabins (most with fireplaces or wood stoves and kerosene lamps). From here, you and your family can go hiking, canoeing, kayaking, biking, and swimming; meals and programs are included, and a nature trail leads to a tea house perfect for reading and painting (if your kids will slow down for such activities). The season is from June 30 to September 1, and applications are considered by lottery on April 1 and thereafter. There is no minimum age for kids.

Great Kids, Great Outdoors is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson. Heather wrote this post.

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Summer may seem a lifetime away, but super-organized parents are reserving camp spots already. If you’re like me and still wondering what you’ll do this weekend, though, don’t worry; there’s time to make a plan. But more options are available if you start soon.

Here are a few resources to help you:

· find summer day camps and overnight camps near you

· evaluate whether a program is a good fit for your child.

In an upcoming post, I will provide a list of AMC’s offerings for families and teens.

Finding A Camp

When I think about summer options, I start by asking friends and looking at the websites of organizations I know. These are still tried and true methods. But if you’re looking for a more comprehensive way to identify possibilities, the nonprofit American Camp Association offers an online tool to search for ACA-accredited day and overnight camps. You can search by program focus, affiliation, child’s age, location, and other criteria.

Evaluating A Camp

Once you’ve identified a day or overnight camp that seems interesting, here are some issues to research as you consider it for your kids. It’s always a good idea to talk directly with someone involved in the program, including a parent of a past participant, and to visit if possible.

Philosophy and Program

· What’s the larger goal of the camp, and how does the daily schedule serve it? Is there chapel, or competitive sports, or other elements you want to include or avoid? What’s the food like? How will you be able to communicate with your camper? How is homesickness handled? What about discipline? Does the length of the camp (one week, two weeks, or more) seem like the right fit for your family?

Accreditation and Training

· Is the camp accredited? If not, why not? What is the counselors’ average age, education level, and training in first aid and other skills related to the camp’s offerings? Does the camp conduct criminal background checks on staff?

Health and Safety

· What is the medical staff on site, and nearby? What are safety procedures (near water, for example)? If the camp transports children, how often are vehicles inspected and what is the drivers’ training?

Ratios and References

· What is the counselor-to-camper ratio? What percentage of counselors and campers returns each year? Can you talk with parents and kids who attended the camp last year?

Fees

· Make sure you understand the full fees, and ask about financial aid if you might qualify.

What other questions do you think are helpful to ask?

Great Kids, Great Outdoors is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson. Heather wrote this post.

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Looking for a quick idea for an outing around Boston this weekend? Last Sunday, my family took advantage of the current discounted rates at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln and spent a great morning wandering the grounds. And the previous weekend, we saw lots of signs of beaver at the Punkatasset conservation land in Concord.

DeCordova is a 35-acre park with more than 60 modern and contemporary sculptures to view. While signs ask visitors not to climb on the art, a few pieces are interactive: You can make music by dragging a stick across a large set of chimes, for example, and step in and out of a two-room house made of two-way mirrors. My 2-year-old and I also couldn’t resist walking through a Roy Lichtenstein sculpture that she dubbed “big red person.” (The piece is actually called Ozymandius, and a sign provides the Percy Bysshe Shelly poem of the same name for those curious about its story.)

Along a path that winds behind the museum building, visitors have created whimsical cairns, to which we added a few stones and a pine cone. Anyone interested in a longer, wooded hike can access a 3.5-mile loop around nearby Sandy Pond from the parking lot. (It’s described in AMC’s Best Day Hikes near Boston.)

Admission to the sculpture park is free Monday through Friday and half price on the weekends until January 21, because the museum building is closed while a new exhibit is being installed. The store is open, though, so you can duck in to warm up and visit the bathrooms (unisex, with baby changing stations).

Punkatasset is harder to find than the sculpture park, but offers a great set of trails, including a short loop through woods and meadows and around Hutchins Pond that might take half an hour at an adult pace. We hiked it with our daughter in a backpack for part of the time and walking on her own the rest. We saw a few other people, some walking their dogs off leash. The highlight was surely the signs of recent beaver activity, including one tree that didn’t look like it would be standing much longer.

To find this gem, drive on Monument Street from the center of Concord until you are about six tenths of a mile north of the Fenn School. Park on the left side of the road and walk down what looks like a driveway to access the trails. A sign provides a map. The town also has information and a map (PDF) online.

Great Kids, Great Outdoors is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson. Heather wrote this post.

If you’ve packed up your tent until next spring, you might want to reconsider. Winter offers families another season — and another world — to explore through camping. Children may enjoy the wonderfully paradoxical nature of winter camping even more than most adults. It’s cold, but you are warm. There’s the immensity of the world outside the tent and coziness of the world inside it. Even winter’s basic elements, snow and ice, are paradoxes: delicate enough to melt in your hand, strong enough to bear the weight of a tent, frozen substances that insulate you on the most frigid nights. These wonderful and strange properties may be why children need little encouragement to play in the snow.

The challenge for parents is to make sure winter camping is comfortable. However, if you follow a few simple rules for safety and start slowly, you won’t find it hard to create warm family memories out of cold winter nights.

What follows are tips and suggestions for family camping in winter and maybe some encouragement for getting your tent out of storage.

Start close to home. In fact, Yemaya Maurer and Lucas St. Clair, authors of the AMC Guide to Winter Hiking and Camping, recommend starting at home. If you introduced your children to summer camping by setting up a tent in the yard, you’re already familiar with the benefits of the backyard approach. Trying clothing, sleeping bags, and gear within view of home gives you an easy escape if a child gets cold, wet, or scared — not to mention a nearby bathroom. Don’t forget to build snowmen and snow forts, too: Playing in a familiar way in the snow, Maurer and St. Clair remind us, gives children a basic level of comfort about being outdoors in the winter.

Choose close-in favorites. For first winter camping outings with children, Maurer and St. Clair recommend returning to familiar places, preferably those within a mile of a road. Children will be fascinated by the changed feel of a trail they know in other seasons, while you’ll have the extra comfort of knowing where you are. Expect to travel much more slowly on snow than on a dry trail, and remember that daylight starts later and ends earlier in winter than in summer. Check on seasonal road closures and trailhead parking before heading out.

Practice layering. Keeping warm and dry is the key to successful winter camping trips, and the key to staying warm and dry is layering. Children need to be taught to wear several layers of clothing that retains heat but not moisture— no cotton — and then need to practice adding layers before they’re cold and taking layers off before they sweat.

Try on all clothes at home before packing them on an overnight trip. You want to know ahead of time that last year’s long underwear no longer fits, or that the zipper on that jacket doesn’t work.

Once on the trail, stop regularly to monitor young children’s feet and hands for cold (inspect for blisters while you’re at it) and check that inner layers aren’t wet. Pack extras, and make sure children change out of soggy clothes when you reach camp.

Enlist children in setting up camp. One of the secrets of winter camping is how much like child’s play it is. Children can help shovel out snow benches and tables, stomp out tent sites, and fill containers with snow to melt into water. Arrive in camp early in the day so kids aren’t too tired, hungry, or cold to join in.

Have fun keeping warm. Eat high-calorie snacks and meals, says AMC Adventure Programs Manager Sara DeLucia. Kids are likely to enjoy being required to bring candy bars to bed with them in case they wake up cold, or getting to drink such winter-camping standards as hot liquid Jell-O and hot chocolate. DeLucia also recommends warming up sleeping bags with hot-water bottles and bringing along packets of hand and toe warmers.

Keep it safe, and keep it fun. The standard advice about outdoor activities with children is never more true than for winter activities. If you help children stay warm and dry throughout a winter camping trip, they’re likely to enjoy themselves. And if they’ve had fun in the snow, fun in the tent, and fun coming back out, they’ll probably want to go winter camping again — with you.

Learn more
Purchase the AMC Guide to Winter Hiking and Camping by Yemaya Maurer and Lucas St. Clair.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog written by Kristen Laine.

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Kristen Laine has been writing this blog since May 2009, and I’ve been happily editing it. Behind the scenes, we have enjoyed long conversations about raising kids, but readers have heard only her voice. This year, Kristen and I have decided to share the blog, alternating posts from our somewhat different perspectives—Kristen living in a house in the country and raising older kids, me in a city apartment with a toddler.

You’ll still hear a great deal about Kristen and her family, and the pleasures and challenges of their rural life in New Hampshire, but you’ll also hear from me about getting outside as a family around greater Boston. Given my role as publisher at the Appalachian Mountain Club, I’ll also be posting information about what’s going on at AMC, from special opportunities for families to program news.

Of course, as soon as I agreed to share the blog with Kristen, I wondered what I was thinking. As a mother who works full-time, I sometimes feel challenged to get outside with my family at all, let alone write about the experience. But I’m hoping that adding my voice to this forum will help inspire others and give me fresh ideas. So please, let me—and Kristen—know your questions and suggestions as we try this new experiment in 2012.

And if you’re curious about the photos of me, both the one at the top of this post and the one with my bio on the blog were taken at Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Mass., earlier this week by my friend Lynda Banzi Sponholtz, an AMC member. That was before the weather turned cold again!



@font-face { font-family: "ＭＳ 明朝"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria Math"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }.MsoChpDefault { font-family: Cambria; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; } “Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine and Heather Stephenson.
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Another year gone, a new year starting, a time for reflecting… which makes this a good time to look back on “Great Kids, Great Outdoors” posts from 2011 that touched people or were shared most widely.

“Sir, the AT Cat.” I first wrote about Sir and his trail friend, Magic Mix, in a description of efforts by “trail angels” to help thru-hikers stranded by Tropical Storm Irene in New Hampshire and Vermont at the end of the summer. Readers wanted to know more about Sir, and the story of the black backpack-sitting cat and his young owner became the year’s most popular post. (2011 was the Year of the Cat around AMC: One of the top posts on Matt Heid’s “Equipped” blog was about the house cat at the Mount Washington Observatory.)

“Deathslog.” Maybe it was the title, or maybe the debate that followed it. For whatever reason, the story of four boys, their fathers, and their one-day hike across the Presidential Range became one of the most-read posts of 2011.

“Early-Season Family Hikes.” This series of three posts from April was fueled by the eagerness every hiker feels to get back into the mountains after a long winter — and the winter of 2010-2011 was a long one. Experienced AMC guidebook authors helped me select day hikes for families — Robert Buchsbaum for the White Mountains, Michael Tougias and John Burk for hikes near Boston, and Peter Kick for hikes in the Hudson Valley and Catskills — and, judging from how often the posts were read, helped many families get an early start on hiking.

“Wicked Big Puddles and Vernal Pools.” Who doesn’t like spotted salamanders and the delightfully crazy folks who set up “salamander crossings” to help these New England amphibians return to vernal pools each spring? The first warm rain of the year brings salamanders, wood frogs, and other forest creatures to these ephemeral pools for a very short time — sometimes only one or two nights — to mate and begin a new cycle of life. A series of Mass Audubon outings gave me the title for a post that combined natural science with information on where families could join the fun.

Some of the most viewed posts of the year weren’t actually from 2011. I’m glad to know that such series as the five-part “Fall Hikes and Rambles with Kids,” from September 2009, and “Teaching Kids Cross-Country Skiing,” from December 2010, are still being found and read.

“Great Kids” also need the “Great Outdoors” in town and at school. “Rethinking Schoolyards — and Classrooms,” also a popular older post, explored the efforts of innovative schools to incorporate the natural world into children’s school days. I profiled the outdoor playground at Crossroads Academy in Lyme, New Hampshire, and the outdoor classrooms created through the Boston Schoolyard Initiative.

Finally, in this blog I sometimes explore our own outdoors family relationships, our ups and downs, high points and spills. “If the snowshoe fits: one reluctant kid, one grumpy mom, and a dad with hot dogs,” from January, was the most popular of those posts in 2011.

The New Year brings some changes to the “Great Kids, Great Outdoors” blog. Beginning this week, AMC Outdoors and AMC Books publisher Heather Stephenson will start sharing her knowledge of AMC and her own experiences as an outdoor parent. Look for her fresh and different perspective to these postings starting Saturday. And as always, we hope you’ll share your own knowledge and experiences with us. It’s going to be a great year!

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

Before I was married, I liked being out in the mountains on New Year’s Eve, dug into the snow up high, stepping out of the tent and looking at the stars in the winter sky, musing on the year just past, thinking about the year to come. I made lists in my mind of things I resolved to do, wrote them down when I was back at home, and referred to them throughout the months that followed.

Jim’s favorite New Year’s Eve tradition, before we married, was more festive. It involved a gathering at a friend’s camp on a small pond. There would be music and a fire and skating. At midnight, they’d take down from its perch on a wall an unwieldy, 10-foot-long Swiss alpenhorn, throw open the door, and take turns trying to send a recognizable rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” out into the night air. One year, he remembers, coyotes in the surrounding hills answered back.

As a couple with young children, ringing in the New Year has been a more domestic affair. This year, we’ll have just returned from a visit to family, so our celebration will be simple, and at home. Ursula and Virgil will no doubt insist on a game of Risk (a Christmas gift), which means that one of them may start 2012 as emperor of the world. Jim and I have been talking about spending part of the evening coming up with family resolutions: things we want to do individually and together, promises we want to make, and goals we’d like to reach.

We’ve noticed that many of our ideas have to do with the outdoors. We’ve noticed, also, that the ideas fall into a few categories, and that thinking of the categories inspires us to come up with more ideas, whether they become resolutions or not. I thought I’d share the categories, and some of our ideas, here.

Places we’d like to go. We keep a family list of places we’d like to travel to, or return to, tacked to the kitchen bulletin board. Some of these places are not in our current budget — I’m thinking of the moon, on Virgil’s list — but many are parks or natural areas. We’ll ask Ursula and Virgil each to pick one of these for family trips we’ll make in 2012. Will we visit Gettysburg? Yosemite? Acadia?

Goals to motivate us. A neighbor tries to climb nearby Mount Cardigan at least 100 times each year. What if we climbed it 25 times as a family? Picked some number of 4,000 footers to climb in 2012? Made a family commitment to hike a certain number of miles on the Appalachian Trail? Even asking Ursula and Virgil about their outdoor goals should make for an interesting conversation.

Changing daily behaviors. In the “if everyone lights just one little candle” vein, we want to consider the small things that add up, like leaving the car behind and walking to do our errands, buying fewer things, and turning off lights when we leave the room. If we lived closer to town, we’d add ‘walking or biking to school’ to that list. Putting these, and other small changes, on our list of resolutions will help us create new habits.

Joining with others to help the environment. Ursula and Virgil are old enough to join a local group that maintains trails on Mount Cardigan several times a year. Other groups organize cleanups of nearby rivers and parks. Ursula may want to expand a school project, growing endangered lady slippers, or Virgil could translate his love of animals into helping protect wildlife habitat.

Keeping promises. One of Jim’s regrets for the year that’s ending is that he didn’t follow through on a promise he made to Virgil to spend a night together outdoors. We took several backpacking trips as a family, but Virgil didn’t get that night in a tent with only his dad. Jim is determined not to let such an omission happen next year. He’s also promised to take Ursula fishing on the Rapid River. I’ve promised to take Ursula and a friend to Rumney Rocks. We’ll put these on the table and ask the kids what outdoor promises they’d like from us, then ask the same of each other. (I think I see fly-fishing in my future…)

May your New Year bring new outdoor adventures and new commitments to protecting our natural places and this beautiful big blue planet.

Learn how to make a "Resolution magnet" on Kaboose.com.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

“I am 16 years old and live in Harrisburg, Virginia,” the legal document starts. Grant Serrels, the young Virginian, goes on to describe what it’s like to be a 21st-century kid growing up on the Shenandoah River:

When we moved to Timberville, Virginia almost six years ago, our family lived in a house located on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. My excitement of being able to play, fish, and swim in the river was quickly thwarted. As a new resident, my family and I soon learned the river had become polluted as a result of lax standards of factory discharge into the river. The river water had also increased in water temperature due to climate change and the bottom of the river was covered in algae. The Shenandoah River had become unsafe for swimming. Also, ‘fish kill’ became a common vocabulary word for the die off of trout, bass, and sunfish (sometimes in large numbers). My dad is a fisherman, and we would go fishing together a lot. We caught several fish in the Shenandoah River that had lesions. The reason for these lesions and the fish kill is related to the increased temperature of the river waters over the past decade.

Serrels is one member of an unusual group of plaintiffs suing the federal government: unusual, because they’re between the ages of 10 and 17; unusual, because they are suing to ask government agencies to more effectively and more quickly address climate change; and unusual, because their case relies on the Public Trust Doctrine, which requires the government to protect and maintain certain shared resources for the health and survival of everyone, including children and future generations — that is to say, Serrels and his fellow plaintiffs. According to Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit organization that assembled and filed the case, it is the first time that the Public Trust Doctrine has been applied to the atmosphere and on behalf of the country’s youth.

The young people’s quarrel with the government is that it’s dragging its feet on addressing climate change. Their voices combine youthful sincerity and naiveté with a scientific understanding of climate change, its troubling trajectory, and its political gridlock, which makes this adult both sad and ashamed. The shame comes when I read Madeleine MacGillivray Wallace’s plea for adults to address global warming before it reaches a scientific “tipping point.” “I’m not in a position to take action of the scale needed to fight climate change,” the 15-year-old New York City native writes. “I have to instead depend on my government to live up to its responsibility of protecting the public commons and making sure I, my generation, and future generations have a livable planet.”

Serrels ends his declaration with a similar combination of concern and determination: “I felt very depressed but at the same time motivated to do something about protecting the earth before it’s made uninhabitable for my and future generations.”

These young people are far more politically engaged than the average teenager (or the average adult), but their anxiety about the future is shared by many of the nation’s youth. In a 2011 survey of teen attitudes about nature by The Nature Conservancy, nearly three-quarters of the respondents agreed with the statement, “Previous generations have damaged our environment and left it to our generation to fix it.” Less than one-third thought the government was doing a good job of addressing such major problems.

The young people involved in the climate-change lawsuit have already won a first victory. A hearing was originally scheduled earlier this month in San Francisco, but when the case began to receive national publicity, the hearing was moved to Washington, D.C., at a date yet to be determined. Several of the plaintiffs hand-delivered letters to members of Congress before the holiday break urging them to take action.

Learn more
- Read a letter by Alec Loorz, 16, founder of youth movement iMatter and one of the climate-change plaintiffs.
- Watch videos made by the young plaintiffs in the lawsuit brought by Our Children’s Trust.
- Get updates on the climate-change lawsuit.
- Learn about The Nature Conservancy survey.

Photo of climate-change youth plaintiff Alex Loorz.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

Wooden skis, leather lace-up boots, cable bindings. Space-age skis, plastic boots, step-in bindings. Stretch ski pants and anoraks. Jean overalls and down jackets. These are details that bring back a flood of memories from a childhood spent on skis — details shown to great effect in a “Vintage Skiing” photo archive on Boston.com.

If you grew up skiing in the White Mountains, Massachusetts, or Vermont, you’re likely to find photos in this archive that bring on the same rush of memories. Photos stretching back as far as the 1930s offer an interesting pictorial record of skiing in New England. There are the ski trains, with ski-carrying passengers disembarking for the walk up the ski hill; single-chair ski lifts; lessons showing techniques long consigned to history; children crying, children smiling. Many of the pictures, not surprisingly, were taken on sunny days, appropriately for sunny memories of skiing. And who doesn’t give a rouse for 70-year-old Win Smythe, shown chatting with 17-year-old Harry Muzzy after the older man had finished skiing the challenging Thunderbolt Trail in Adams, Mass.?

The Boston.com ski scrapbook was prompted by a similar visit to the photo archives by The New York Times.

Click through the 31 photos on Boston.com or 20 photos on The New York Times website this holiday season with someone who taught you to ski. It’ll be a schuss down memory lane…

Learn more
- View "Vintage Skiing" on Boston.com.
- View “Vintage Skiing” on The New York Times website. Some of these photos also depict skiing in the Northeast.

Photo of old ski passes from "Mod Remod"; ski school from the Boston.com archive; "Ski" photo from a short history of skiing in New England by Laurie J. Puliafico.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

The New York Times Book Review last Sunday contained a small feature, “Bookshelf: Snow,” a round-up of picture books about life in the cold. If you want to bring the pleasures of winter to a young child on your holiday gift list, take a look at the 5 recently published books in that article. Or consider one of the children’s winter classics below.

Some of the books on the “Bookshelf” list will feel familiar to any child who builds snowmen or spends time exploring snowy woods. Making a Friend shows a red-capped boy making a snowman, but the book — and the friendship — doesn’t end when the snow melts. Soft watercolors show the snowman in rain and in fog, and then back with the boy the next winter. In Over and Under the Snow, a girl goes cross-country skiing with her father and follows clues to the “secret kingdom” of wild animals in the winter months.

Two of the new books travel to cold places that most of us will never see. Little Dog Lost tells the true story of a dog who drifted out to the Baltic Sea on an ice floe. The story gives author and illustrator Monica Carnesi the chance to describe, and show, the immensity of the Arctic landscape — with a happy ending. The subtitle of North explains what the book is about — “the amazing story of Arctic migration” — but the large paintings of migrating polar bears, gray whales, snow geese, and caribou, among others, convey the poetry and majesty of migration.

That list prompted me to scan our bookshelves for our favorite picture books about winter. Here are a few:
- The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats. We have the board book version of this Caldecott-winning classic from 1962, now dog-eared from many readings. A small boy explores the snow outside his apartment building.
- The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs. The kids’ British grandfather gave them the wordless “comic-strip” story of a boy who makes a snowman and embarks on a magical adventure. We then discovered that the story had been set to music and animated. Both the book and the short movie are perennial favorites around our house.
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, a Robert Frost poem illustrated by Susan Jeffers. Caldecott Honor–artist Jeffers adds touches of red to an otherwise pale color palette to help answer the question of why Frost’s traveler has stopped in December’s snowy woods. When Ursula and Virgil were very young, they loved to follow those color clues and help solve the mystery of the poem.
- The Mitten, by Jan Brett. Brett understands that children love to linger over picture books; her distinctive illustrations pack additional story lines around the edges of each page. The Mitten retells a Ukrainian folktale in which many animals, from a mouse to a bear, climb into a little boy’s lost mitten.
- Trouble with Trolls, also by Jan Brett. Brett combines trolls, every child’s desire for a dog (“want dog!”), a resourceful heroine, and possibly the best ski descent in children’s literature.

Learn more
- Read "Bookshelf: Snow" from the December 18, 2011 New York Times Book Review.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To see his woods fill up with snow.”
These lines from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and other poems by Robert Frost decorate an unusual literary trail. During the years the great American poet lived in Vermont, he walked through woods not far from the college town of Middlebury. Many years later, snippets from some of his most famous poems mark the paths of his home woods — perhaps in the very places that inspired them.

We'll be visiting this part of Vermont later this winter, and now that we know about the trail, we hope we’ll be able to snowshoe it with Ursula and Virgil, both of whom have grown up hearing Frost’s poems. I bet they’ll enjoy the way that the trail fits some of the poems. At a “Y” in the trail, for example, two lines from “The Road Not Taken — “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — / I took the one less traveled / And that has made all the difference” — are etched into a wooden marker.

Snowshoeing can be “the road less traveled” for families during the winter months. Getting outside as a family with young children during the winter takes a fair amount of effort. Some of the activities most strongly associated with the season — skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, ice skating — require specialized equipment, rentals, lessons, and tickets, all of which can be expensive. Dealing with the logistics alone can feel like enough exercise for a day.

Snowshoeing offers a simple alternative. Snowshoes developed thousands of years ago to help people walk on snow. The basic design of a snowshoe hasn’t changed much over time, and neither has the basic technique: a slight waddle. Even very young children can get the hang of it in a short time. The equipment is inexpensive to buy or rent, and there’s nothing special about the clothing you need.

I recently put together a list of 15 family-friendly snowshoe trails in the Northeast. If a visit to Middlebury isn’t on your schedule this winter, check that list for other trails where the woods are also "lovely, dark, and deep.”

Learn more
- To visit Vermont's Robert Frost Trail, look for a sign on Route 125 heading east out of Middlebury.
- Read “Snowy Walks: 15 family-friendly snowshoes hikes in the Northeast.”

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

The first really cold night of the winter is forecast for tonight, and as far as we’re concerned, it can’t get here soon enough. Over the past week, calm nights and just-below-freezing temperatures have slowly spread a skim of ice over the pond, which has gradually thickened near shore. Jim, who grew up skating on ponds just like ours, has initiated Ursula and Virgil into the pleasures of smooth ice. We’ve been monitoring the ice like cooks who can’t wait for the pot to boil — except in this case, we want the container, our pond, to freeze.

On one of those monitoring forays last weekend, Virgil ventured out onto the ice in his winter boots. Jim has taught both children to measure its thickness by getting down on their hands and knees and using hairline cracks to see how far below them the ice extends. A few feet from shore, the ice was already more than two inches thick — certainly sturdy enough to hold Virgil, who weighs only 70 pounds. He slid several feet farther before we told him that was far enough.

I understand why he wanted to keep going: The ice Virgil was standing on was hard and clear — “ black ice” so transparent that he could clearly see the rocks and weeds on the bottom beneath his feet, and so smooth it feels frictionless. It’s also a rare treat, formed in just the right combination of cold temperatures and calm, clear air: no wind to ripple the surface, no snow or rain to mix in milky bubbles. For pond-hockey players and pond skaters, black ice is a cause for celebration. But this ice wasn’t quite ready to skate on.

Virgil reluctantly slid back in to shore, and for the next 20 minutes he supplied the rest of us with shards of shelf ice, which we flung, skipping-stone or Frisbee-style, across the surface. Some of the better efforts resulted in impossibly long distances — 150, 200 feet — as if the projectiles actually picked up speed as they spun or slid along the ice. I could see Jim imagining skating along the surface, a hockey stick in his hands, a puck sliding out ahead of him…

Last night was cold again, but not cold enough to add the two or three inches that will make the ice safe for adults and big kids. (Four inches of solid lake ice is generally considered safe for walking and skating.) Tonight should be different. If we step outside, we may be treated to an otherworldly sound: the traveling whooping and booming of ice shifting and cracking as it thickens. With no snow in the forecast until later in the week, we may be lucky enough to skate on black ice at least once this year.



Learn more
- Read an ice thickness chart from The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
- Learn more about ice safety.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

If you have children (or their parents) on your gift-giving list this holiday season, don't finish your shopping until you've read the following recommendations from AMC staff, volunteers, and family members. All the ideas listed below are backed by experience and by the belief that family time in the outdoors is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

I've added links for some specific options, but don't forget to look for local options, too.

Babies and Toddlers
- Matt Heid, AMC's Equipped columnist and blogger, has hiked thousands of wilderness miles and is the father of one young child with another on the way. For babies, he recommends fleece booties: "Great for keeping little feet warm and super easy to put on and take off," he says. (Try Patagonia fleece booties.)

- Sara DeLucia, AMC's Adventure Programs Manager, and Alex DeLucia, AMC's Leave No Trace coordinator, are the parents of Leo, age 2. "My all-time favorite gift," Sara says, was a combination stroller, jogger, and ski pulk. "We've been putting Leo in it almost since he was born, using it for walks, running, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing"—in other words, four-season recreation. She notes that families with young children sometimes feel limited in their outdoor activities. "Something like this or a backpack carrier," she says, "really increases the options." (Look at Chariot child trailers to see one option.)

- "The best gift we've given our daughter is a bright green raincoat," says Stefanie Brochu, director of AMC's Youth Opportunities Program. "We invested in a lightweight, good quality coat and it was worth the money. It cinches at the wrist (very important!) and grew with her. We bought it when she was just 18 months and it lasted until she was almost four. Then we passed it down to her younger sister. We've had some great adventures together, knowing that she is just as comfortable in rainy and windy weather as my husband and I are. When other families stay inside on a rainy day we're out hiking, stomping through giant puddles, or exploring a coastline. Our daughter now loves being outside in all types of weather and I think that the little green raincoat has been a big part of that.

Older Children
- Sara DeLucia recommends sleds as great gifts for kids in snow country. AMC member Owen Borek, age 12, who hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail in 2010 with his mother, Cheryl Borek, seconds that idea, but with a slight difference: He's hoping for a toboggan this year.

- Headlamps, Cheryl Borek says, "open up all kinds of possibilities for exploring outside at night." For extra fun, Matt Heid suggests LEGO-person flashlights and headlamps.

- AMC Senior Interpretive Naturalist Nancy Ritger and Shannon LeRoy, office and programs manager for AMC's Maine Woods Initiative, offer ideas to encourage children's interest in nature: binoculars and a bird book; a butterfly coloring book and a net; a bug cage and activity guide; a guide to the seashore like AMC's Seashells in My Pocket packaged with a hand lens or activities book; a guide to the stars plus hot chocolate and a promise to go outside and stargaze.

- One of the best gifts AMC guidebook authors and photographers Jerry and Marcy Monkman ever got for their children were child-sized snowshoes, bought when Quinn and Acadia were preschoolers. Snowshoes "let us explore the outdoors as a family at the drop of a hat," Jerry says. The family also paddles together. Before Jerry and Marcy invested in kayaks for their children, they signed them up for a week of kayaking camp. "The kids loved it," Jerry says. "By the end of the week they could handle a kayak as well as we can."

- "I'd love to be able to give my 9-year-old son an experiential gift instead of a tangible gift," says Eric Stones, a trip leader for AMC's Connecticut Chapter. His son Roderick, he says with fatherly humor, "unfortunately prefers to open presents." For gifts a child can unwrap, Stones recommends hydration systems ("It gets them carrying their own water and makes it fun to hydrate on the trail") and ski gear packages. These packages, which are available for cross-country and downhill ski gear, start with one purchase and then offer low-cost upgrades: "Our local downhill ski store does a free trade up for children's equipment (for children up to 110 lbs.) if you buy a ski package from them," Stone says. "It seemed expensive when the little guy was 4 years old, but he's traded up 4 times now for free and he's still only 60 pounds."

The Whole Family
- Heid calls the REI Base Camp 6 the best family camping tent: “Huge, straightforward to set up, and bomber weather-proof.” h

- Nathan Schumacher leads trips for AMC's Youth Opportunities Program. He suggests sparking outdoor adventures with homemade gift coupons. Create coupon books that can be redeemed for particular hikes—sections of a long trail, perhaps, or to the summits of 3,000- or 4,000-footers, or for 10 state parks or conservation areas. Or add coupons to other gifts—coupons for trips to letterbox locations, for example, that accompany a stamp-making kit and a compass.

- Spending time outside with children is a year-round gift, as Kim Foley MacKinnon learned while researching AMC's new guidebook, Outdoors with Kids Boston, due out in spring 2012. "As I wrote my book," she says, "I was acutely aware of how little in our day-to-day lives my family (and our friends) spend just 'being' together with no agenda (and not much of it outside). During my research, I spent hours with my 12-year-old daughter and many of her friends, and it was freeing just to wander around together." MacKinnon thinks it was easier to be outside when she was growing up. "It is rare for my daughter and her friends to have that much time now," she says. "As counterintuitive as it sounds, I think we have to plan those kinds of days now." MacKinnon hopes other parents will give their children this gift by scheduling hikes, or clearing the family's calendar and taking off for an afternoon of exploring. Being outside together as a family, she says, is "invigorating and renewing and ultimately very rewarding."

Present enough.

Image from Ollie's Ski Trip, by Elsa Beskov.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

This year, as it has every holiday season since 1970, the U.S. Forest Service hand-selected a tall, straight, and full tree to grace the nation’s capital. This year’s tree, a 65-foot white fir, was cut from the Stanislaus National Forest in California and was delivered to the West Lawn of the Capitol last weekend.

The Forest Service has another holiday tradition, as well. A number of national forests have offered $5 tree-cutting permits in November and December for several decades, but interest in the special program has increased dramatically in recent years. In the Eastern region, the permits are available for the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont, and the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.

You can buy tree-cutting permits through Thursday, December 22, at White Mountain National Forest offices in Gorham, Conway, Campton, and Lincoln, in New Hampshire; and at Green Mountain National Forest offices in Rutland, Middlebury, Manchester Center, and Rochester, Vermont.

If you’re interested in cutting your own Christmas tree in one of these national forests, be sure the nearest office will be open. The Androscoggin Ranger Station in Gorham, N.H., is offering limited services in December, but will be open the first three weekends in December to accommodate Christmas tree permit sales. The Conway office is closed on weekends.

Not surprisingly, the nation’s capital is home to several Christmas tree traditions. The National Christmas Tree, a live Colorado blue spruce, was originally transplanted to the White House lawn from York, Pennsylvania, in 1978. The President and First Lady begin the Washington, D.C., holiday season by lighting that tree. That ceremony occurred this year on Thursday, December 1. The Capitol Christmas Tree lighting ceremony will be held at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, December 6.

For your own holiday tradition, you can bundle up your family, grab a hand saw, plunk down five dollars for a permit, cut your own tree, and celebrate your own season of light.


“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

Hiking is a three-season activity for our family. We burst onto the trails in the spring, when they’re still a mix of mud and snow, eagerly seeking every sign of new growth, grateful for the lack of bugs. Summer means overnight backpacking trips and choosing hikes for their cooling water breaks, whether river rambles or the shock of an icy dip in a glacial tarn. My favorite hiking season is the one just ending. Fall’s cooler, drier weather energizes us. We try new trails and return to family favorites, stringing together as many hikes as we can before winter settles in. By November, each time we step on a trail, I think, This could be the last hike of the year.

I know that some people hike around the calendar, prompted by inner urgings or a temperate climate. Here at the edges of the North Country, though, winter becomes hiking’s off-season. Lately I’ve come upon several ideas on how to use the off-season, all of them quite workable with children or with the entire family.
- Think like a gardener. In cold-weather places, gardeners put their gardens to bed for the winter, then turn to many months of productive dreaming over catalogues and books or simply in the quiet company of a fireplace. Hikers can do the same: Pull out guidebooks and maps; explore trails on paper and in your imaginations. Use catalogues to draw up gear lists — and wish lists.
- Create photo albums. Share photos, and memories, from previous hiking trips. Ask your children to tell you their version of the hike and you’re likely to learn more about them, and about the hike. If you return to certain hikes every year, consider taking annual photos at the same location. Children love to see the changes in themselves over time, and in a beloved environment, too.
- Map it. For big hiking projects, think about setting aside some wall space or a table for the project. Maps, for instance, can show your progress on multi-year goals on the Appalachian Trail and other long trails. When the 7-year-old son of friends decided he wanted to hike every one of New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot peaks, the family kept track of his summits in a logbook and also on a big wall map. Before he was done, the map bristled with multi-colored pins. A map can show you where you’ve been, and also — like planning to add sweet corn or pumpkins to your garden — give you new ground to cover.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.

If you’ve ever hiked up Mount Cardigan, stayed at AMC’s Cardigan Lodge, or simply driven by the rounded granite summit topped by a fire tower, you may be interested in a new website that explains the geology of the peak.

Dartmouth College earth sciences professor Brian Dade teamed up with retired doctor and hiker Howie Frankel to create a guide to the geological makeup of five popular hikes in the Upper Connecticut River Valley. The online guide includes Mount Cardigan and a 2-mile section of the Appalachian Trail known locally as the Velvet Rocks Trail. Mount Cardigan is one of what Dade calls a “string of pearls” — granite-based mountains formed during an intense period of volcanic activity 500 million years ago along the coastline of what would become the Atlantic Ocean. These mountains, now many miles inland, are thought to be “ancient magma chambers from a chain of volcanic islands,” Dade says.

Glaciers planed smooth the north side of Cardigan during the Ice Age. But each time a glacier crested the peak, it plucked and pulled rocks off the southern face, creating a more broken topography. Dade says, “Carpenters, think of trying to plane across the grain” at the end of a two by four: “All you get is cracks, chips, and splinters.” It’s an image I’ll keep in mind the next time we picnic in the lee of a big boulder.

Geologists learn to take the long view of history. In an overview of the area’s geology, Dade and Frankel describe a history of upheaval and change. The region’s abundance of slate, granite, marble, and gneiss — all metamorphic rocks that have been altered by heat, pressure, and folding — have been used as building materials around the world, and have created many a fine stone wall at home. The Appalachians were once like the Himalayas, the authors remind us, and the Himalayas will someday be like the Appalachians are now. Now that’s a long view.

The short guide, illustrated by gorgeous photos, is like hiking with a geologist. Take a look at it before your next hike up this popular small mountain.

Learn more
- Geology Guide to the Upper Connecticut Valley

Photo showing glacial "plucking" on the south side of Mt. Cardigan courtesy of the geology guide's authors.

“Great Kids, Great Outdoors” is an AMC Outdoors blog, written by Kristen Laine.