Rhode Island Feeds

Last year as the school year was starting, I wrote about my conversion to “green” lunches. We’d been buying local and organic fruit and vegetables for some time; the change of heart was more about how we wrapped, bottled, and containered Ursula’s and Virgil’s lunches. After gentle prodding from Jim, who as chief lunch-packer and bottle washer had been pushing for safer and more environmentally sound school lunches for the kids, I bought recycled lunch boxes, stainless steel containers, and reusable snack bags before the start of last school year.

A year later, I can say that our purchases have held up well. In fact, Ursula will again use her lunch box made of recycled juice boxes. Only one of the cloth snack bags disappeared over the school year, and the stainless steel containers were a huge hit.

Now that I think about it, what I should really say isn’t that I had a change of heart but that I finally stiffened my spine. When I wrote about last year’s purchases, I confessed to not wanting to know about chemicals like BPA, phthalates, and PBDEs. Once I was aware of their role as endocrine disruptors — in fish and other wildlife as well as in humans — I started to realize how pervasive they are. And in knowing more, our actions continued to change. A study I came upon later in the year identified the kids’ favorite soups as especially high in BPA. We started making our own soups. I learned that Maine had banned the use of plastic pallets because of concerns about food contamination by the PBDE form called DECA. We became even more careful about washing all produce and fruits.

For this school year, we’re trying not to use plastics or containers coated with toxic chemicals for any of our children’s lunches. We’ve disposed of most of our plastic storage containers and have added glass containers to the stainless steel ones.

Currently six states have banned BPA from baby bottles and baby toys. (And Denmark earlier this summer became the most recent country to enact a ban.) Legislation to ban BPA from children’s food and drinks has been introduced in the Senate. This bill replaces an earlier proposal to ban BPA from all food and drink packaging, which was pulled after intensive lobbying by industry groups.

I shouldn’t have to distrust our food safety system and our manufacturing. But until I have a better sense that the companies that supply so many of our household products care about the longterm health of my children, I’ll continue to follow the news and purchase their lunch supplies very carefully.

Learn more
• “Going Green Back to School” (2009)
• I found Ursula’s recycled lunch box, Virgil’s cotton lunch bag, and other lunch supplies at reuseit.com.
• Vermont, Connecticut, and New York have banned BPA in certain products, including children’s bottles and toys. A bill currently being debated in Maine could result in BPA being phased out in products for use by children.

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

As an outdoors family, we care about the health of our environment — from the plants, animals, and natural features just outside our front door to those that we occasionally visit or only read about. Over the last several years, we’ve tried to make our daily habits correspond to that care. And that includes our back-to-school shopping.

I’ve recently come upon two useful documents for back-to-school planning and shopping. The Environmental Protection Agency has put together common-sense general guidelines that save the environment and save money. (Families are expected to spend an average of $606 on back-to-school purchases this year, according to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation.) Some of the EPA’s recommendations:

• Don’t automatically buy new. Can a child reuse last year’s backpack, binder, or pencil pouch?
• When you do buy, choose products that are made from recycled materials, such as pencils made from old blue jeans and binders made from old shipping boxes.
• Buy products with minimal packaging or that come in bulk sizes. Packaging accounts for more than 30 percent of all the waste generated each year.
• If you’re buying electronics, looks for the Energy Star logo, which means that the computer or gadget meets strict efficiency guidelines set by the EPA.

The other document is a fantastically detailed booklet from the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice (founded by Lois Gibbs in 1981 after her activism prompted one of the nation’s first toxic chemical clean-ups at Love Canal) for purchasing PVC-free school supplies.

What’s PVC, and why should we avoid it? The short answer is that both the manufacturing process for this ubiquitous plastic and its incineration in landfills (or just heating it in a microwave or on the stove) releases a group of chemicals called dioxins, which are known to be toxic to humans and to wildlife. In addition, phthalates are often added to PVC products to soften them. These plastics additives have been banned from baby toys and bottles, but not from other children’s products. More than 90 percent of all phthalates are used in PVC plastics.

The 17-page booklet, available online along with a shorter guide, offers specific tips for avoiding PVC school supplies and a detailed list of manufacturers that offer PVC-free alternatives. Some of the tips:

• Avoid products with the 3-arrow recycling symbol with the number 3 or initials PVC, which indicates that the product is made with PVC.
• Avoid backpacks with shiny plastic designs as they often contain PVC.
• Avoid metal encased in colorful plastic, like the binder clips and paper clips in bright colors, alas. These usually contain PVC.

Next up: Packing Green School Lunches.

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

Now that I’ve made the case for summer, it’s time to say good-bye to it.

Regardless of what the calendar says, summer ends for children and their families on the first day of school. No matter whether school starts in mid-August or whether September days are just as hot and steamy as they were at summer’s peak — when days are once again bound by schedule, and homework, and carpools or buses, it’s fall.

The next few posts look ahead to the new school year. Some offer advice for “going green” with school supplies. Then I turn to what’s new with the growing “safe routes to school” movement. Later on, I’ll take a look at the latest thinking in playground design, through an innovative natural play space created this summer at an elementary and middle school in the Upper Connecticut River Valley.

Of course, being outdoors is a year-round proposition, whether school is in session or not. So following this short series, look for the best places to hike during foliage season, 52 peaks with a view (all below 4,000 feet, and all in the White Mountains), and more!

If you’re already back on school routines, welcome to fall. If you’re still a day or more away – enjoy these precious few last hours of summer.

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

I’m trying to catch up on summer reading before the season ends, and just finished reading the cover story in an issue of TIME magazine that I picked up earlier this month. The cover first caught my eye: A shirtless boy in a baseball cap skipping a stone across a pond, rendered in a retro, Norman Rockwell style. But it was the headline that made me buy the magazine. In bold black type across the top of the image, it said, “The Case Against Summer Vacation.”

The article, by David von Drehle, claims that Americans romanticize a lengthy summer break that has its roots in our country’s agrarian past. In our imaginations, summertime for children means day after day off the clock. It means the freedom to let minds roam — and bodies, too, from stream to seaside to forest and lake. In this idyllic summer world, every child spends hours outside, reads dozens of books, plays games with cousins and grandparents, daydreams, invents, travels, explores.

The reality, von Drehle convincingly argues, is that for many children, summer isn’t a time of enrichment but a time of loss — learning loss. On average, American children lose one month of progress in math skills from the end of one school year to the beginning of the next; for children from low-income families, the “summer slide” can mean slipping back three months in reading comprehension, compared with their middle-income peers.

By the time such disadvantaged children complete elementary school, they have fallen three grade levels behind, according to a 20-year study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Roughly two-thirds of that achievement gap can be attributed to summer learning loss.

But this achievement gap doesn’t make “the case against summer vacation.” It makes the case against wasted vacations. The article describes children who spend their summer breaks on virtual house arrest — cooped up indoors in unsafe neighborhoods, unsupervised by adults — or in communities with shockingly few resources for children. Enrichment programs can close the gap, von Drehle says, and he profiles several successful ones around the country.

Unfortunately, the headline and a simplified version of the article, which can be summarized as “Our children are falling behind academically because we insist on holding onto a summer break that has no place in modern America,” is now making the rounds.

When I look closely at some of the data included in the article, I come to a different set of questions and conclusions. In a graph charting “The Summer Slide,” I notice that the slope of achievement steepens for children from high-income families in the summer between third and fourth grade, and again the following summer. It’s actually higher during the summer months than during the school year.

Shouldn’t we be asking, then, What is it that high-income kids get that other kids don’t? And how do we make those things available to all children?

The TIME article offers a partial answer to both questions. Privileged children get enrichment during the summer months in numerous forms, from sleepaway camps to family vacations (although fewer families spend entire summers at a cottage than in previous generations). As for how to bring a version of summer to all children, under the heading “Stealth Learning,” von Drehle profiles a program in the Appalachian town of Corbin, Kentucky. Every Wednesday, Redhound Enrichment takes the children in its program to the swimming pool. They also go fishing, and when they weigh and measure their fish, they’re doing a day’s worth of math. Nearly 9 in 10 of the kids come from latchkey families. By the time school starts again, more than half of the kids improve in math by a full letter grade, or more. Interestingly, even though the program doesn’t explicitly offer reading instruction, the children also improve similarly in reading.

I’ve often written in this space about the growing body of research on the value of time in nature, down time, unplugged time, even boredom. The case for summer vacation is the case for spending time outside, for self-directed reading, for learning new skills or practicing old ones.

My family is lucky to have time, economic wherewithal, and an understanding of the importance of those lessons. When I think of what my children have done with this summer break, I think of the long list of books Ursula has devoured, but also how trips we’ve taken have let her spread her wings, both in cities and in wilder country. I remember countless games of Stratego and Settlers of Catan that Virgil played, but also how much time he spent in the water and around our land, and how he backpacked even with his arm in a full cast.

This is the kind of stealth learning that actually improves academic achievement — and does something more that can’t be measured. In fact, I’d like to turn the debate about summer vacation around and say that the more pleasurable, enriching activities of summer we give our children, the better off they’ll all be.

Why not have the best of summer, year-round?

Learn more
- Read the TIME article.
- See the cover.
- Read a summary of the research on summer learning loss.

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

A recent article in The New York Times described an unusual outdoors adventure: a week-long raft trip down the San Juan River in southern Utah undertaken by a group of neuroscientists to debate the effect of spending time “unplugged.” The skeptics in the group didn’t see much value in disconnecting from their electronic devices or from email and the web. Others saw value in stepping away from daily distractions. They wondered if our brains might look or act differently on the river or on a trail. The trip could be called a moving debate on the importance of vacations, especially vacations in the outdoors.

As it happens, I read the article a few days after it was published because we’d just returned from a three-day hiking trip. On the first day of our trip, Jim and the kids and I hiked several miles to a campsite next to a spring-fed lake and set up our tents. The next day, the four of us climbed a small peak; Virgil and I read on the summit while Jim and Ursula traversed to a second peak. Back at the lake, we swam in the cool water. We’d brought a pack of cards with us, and we played card games on a table-sized rock at the campsite. Virgil had finished his book at the summit, so I started reading to him from mine, an adventure story about a Viking set near the end of the first millennium.

It’s worth saying that Jim and I weren’t working, or taking phone calls, or doing chores around the house. When I took my place at the granite card table, my normal mental list, in which each item starts with Remember to ( … put laundry in dryer, call Mom, pay bills, start this, finish that), was gone. In its place was a single thought, not even a command, that I might characterize as Just be here.

During our three backcountry days, I reminded Jim of something our friend Whit once told us. Whit is the father of three daughters and an avid parent and outdoorsman. A few years back, in his pursuit of ever better parenting, he attended a lecture by Mary Pipher, Ph.D., best known for her book Reviving Ophelia. He passed on to us two simple pieces of advice from Pipher for conveying strong family values to children, and staying connected with them through adolescence: One, eat dinners together as a family; two, take family vacations.

Our hiking trip gave evidence to his point, and Pipher’s. We grew closer as a family during our time on the trail and in camp. We shared old stories and developed new ones. We made up dumb jokes and laughed together. Virgil completed his first real backpacking trek without any complaint and basked in our appreciation of his accomplishment. Ursula stepped out, both as a hiker and as a helper around camp. Our second day in, a family — parents, two-year-old daughter, grandmother — took the other campsite on the lake. Ursula walked the toddler back and forth between our two camps while the adults set up camp, giving her full attention to the little girl as she pointed out each pretty wildflower.

The scientists on the river trip were paying attention to the quality of our attention. In the Times article, one of them said, “Attention is the holy grail. Everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.” The article mentioned new research on working memory that suggests we should be careful of cluttering it too much, and thereby lose our ability to focus, to pay attention.

When I read that quote, though, I thought of the attention we give our children. Parental attention does seem to me a kind of holy grail. I value our recent hiking trip for many reasons, but one of them is the better, more focused and clear attention I could give my children.

This morning, I went online looking for the advice from Mary Pipher that Whit had passed on to us. I found this in an interview: “Three things that adults remember with the greatest pleasure from childhood: time outdoors, family meals, and family vacations. So my simplest advice to parents is, if you want your children to have happy memories, spend time outdoors with them, eat family meals together, and take them on vacation. And they'll have good memories of your family.”
From what I’ve seen in our own family, and from what those rafting neuroscientists may determine, good memories probably aren’t the only benefit.

Learn more
- “Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain” (The New York Times, August 15, 2010)
- Mary Pipher’s books and research on adolescence and family life.
- Virgil and I are still reading The Long Ships, a recently re-issued book by the Swedish author Frans Bengtsson. Read the review in The Christian Science Monitor.

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

“I’m having trouble getting my family outdoors...”

A mother wrote this in a recent comment on the blog. She wanted to get her 3-year-old daughter outdoors more. But her husband is an indoors person and spends many hours at work. When he’s at home, her daughter wants to spend time with him.

It’s a common family situation: For many reasons — work, travel, illness, or simple lack of interest — getting a family outdoors becomes a one-parent effort. And that effort can feel overwhelming.

I know the feeling. When Ursula was a baby, Jim worked long days at a job 80 miles from our home. We were new to the area, and I didn’t know many other parents. Some days, “getting outdoors” meant a brief stop at a playground in between errands, naps, and meals. Gradually I found other moms who liked to be outside, too. We’re lucky to live near hiking trails, and it wasn’t hard to plan short day hikes. Even so, I look back and regret that we didn’t do more in the outdoors together as a family during that time.

More resources have become available over the past decade for parents who want to get their children, and themselves, outdoors. I’m always inspired by the Children and Nature Network, both by the stories of parents and communities and by the research that reminds me why it’s important to get my family outside. (Two articles currently on their website that caught my eye: Turning your backyard into a discovery zone; the benefits of outdoor play.) C&NN also maintains a database of parent-led nature clubs. I’ve run into parents who have found great support within these clubs.

I’m guessing that the mother who wrote that comment lives somewhere along the East Coast between Washington, D.C., and Maine, in which case she has access to the resources of AMC’s local and regional chapters. As part of its Vision 2020 initiative, AMC is focusing on helping families and children get outdoors.

What to do, though, when one parent is, as this mother wrote, “an indoors person” who’s “hard to budge”? It could be that this dad will join in on outdoors activities once he sees how much fun they are, and if he doesn’t have to stretch to organize them. But it could also be that spending time outdoors will become something that this mother shares with her daughter. Even if the father never budges from his chair or the computer screen, the mother and daughter will have gained a lifetime of benefits from being outside together.

Advice from other readers?

Learn more
- "Getting Children Outdoors" (AMC Outdoors, May/June 2010)
- AMC family trips and activities
- Children & Nature Network

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

From the sandy shores of Cape Cod to the rocky, island-filled coast of Maine, few outdoor activities are better suited for New England than sea kayaking. Touring coastlines and ponds by kayak has the potential to be a superb family experience, as well, whether as part of a guided day-trip or as a regular activity.

As nature photographers and the authors of Discover Southern New Hampshire and Discover Acadia National Park, Jerry and Marcy Monkman know the special appeal of a water's-eye view. And as the parents of two children, they also understand the pleasure of sharing that perspective with youngsters. Michael O'Connor, author of Discover Cape Cod, agrees that paddling together as a family can be "an absolutely delightful experience."

Part of the trick to planning successful family kayak trips, according to these AMC authors, is knowing what to do; the other is knowing where to go. "What to do" includes boat handling, navigation, and water safety skills—information that takes time to develop. For that reason, O'Connor and the Monkmans urge novice paddlers to acquire a strong foundation of skills and experience before taking children on the water. Families can also sign up for guided tours offered by experienced outfitters.

Ten Tips for Starting Out
• Parents should know basic paddling strokes, be able to read tide charts and nautical charts, and know how to get an overboard child back into a boat while on the water.
• Wear a PFD (personal flotation device) at all times. (In many states, children under 12 are required by law to wear PFDs.)
• Be aware of water temperature. Especially in the colder waters off the coast of Maine, hypothermia can set in within minutes.
• Keep track of weather. Know in advance the detailed, local forecast, and avoid trips when there are high wind or surf advisories.
• Keep close to shore, especially if you don't have strong navigation skills.
• Be aware of tides and strong currents. If you plan your trips for the two or three hours around high tide, tidal rivers can offer very pretty, easy meandering, without grounding you or requiring difficult trudges through mudflats.
• Try a double kayak. Double kayaks, somewhat like tandem bicycles, allow parent and child to be in the same boat. Some two-seat kayaks have a cargo hatch between the seats that can double as a child's seat. By the age of 12, children are generally big enough to master a double-bladed kayak paddle. Younger children can help a little, but adults should be prepared to provide most of the muscle.
• If a kayak has a spray skirt, check that young paddlers are strong enough to release the ripcord that holds it, and can quickly exit the boat if it capsizes. Nylon skirts require less power to release than those made of neoprene.
• Be prepared with plenty of water, food, hats, sunglasses, bug spray, and sunscreen. A day on the water constantly exposes you to the elements. Other safety items include dry bag, first aid kid, foghorn, and cell phone or VHF radio.
• When children are strong paddlers and know how to wet-exit a kayak—typically not until they're teenagers—they're ready to safely join adults on longer and more open-water paddles.

Ten Trips

Massachusetts
In these five family-friendly kayak trips on Cape Cod and along Boston's South Shore recommended by Michael O'Connor, tidal rivers, marshlands, and bays offer protected paddling for flat-water adventures from 30 minutes to 3 hours or even overnight. The biggest issue on these trips may be the parking!

• Gull Pond, Wellfleet. This protected pond, fed by underground springs, is the largest of Wellfleet's famously clear freshwater kettle ponds. A canoe livery on the pond rents kayaks. Gull Pond is a great destination for a family's first kayaking adventure, with the promise of swimming afterward. During the summer season, you'll need a beach/parking pass, and you may want to avoid the mid-day crowds.
• Nauset Marsh, Eastham. Nauset Marsh is the central natural feature in a sprawling estuary that's dotted with islands and extraordinarily rich in bird and marine life. Register for guided paddles (fee required) at nearby Salt Pond Visitor Center, part of the Cape Cod National Seashore.
• Herring River, Harwich. On the Nantucket Bay side of Cape Cod in a scenic mid-Cape area, the Herring River will take you through protected land and past remnants of old cranberry bogs. "It's the busiest part of the Cape," O'Connor says, "but you can feel as if you have that pristine environment all to yourself."
• Waquoit Bay, Falmouth. The heart of the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, the bay itself is half a mile wide but quite shallow, and offers miles of protected paddling. Extend your adventure overnight by reserving one of 11 wilderness campsites on Washburn Island. O'Connor cautions against breaching the outlet to Nantucket Sound, however.
• North River, Norwell. Only 25 miles from Boston along the Bay State's South Shore, paddle up the North River to Norwell, a historic center of colonial shipbuilding, along a stretch of protected waterway. The Beaver, of Boston Tea Party fame, and the Columbia, which gave its name to the great Pacific Northwest river, were both built on land near to what is now part of the Norris Reservation. North River is a tidal river, so it's important to pick a three-hour period around high tide for this paddle.

New Hampshire and Maine
Jerry and Marcy Monkman have introduced their children, ages 7 and 9, to sea kayaking through short trips near their home in Portsmouth, N.H., and through summer-camp instruction. Within a year or two, they expect their children to be ready to join them in exploring the spectacular scenery around Mount Desert Island in Maine.

• Pierce Island to Sagamore Creek, Portsmouth, N.H. Put in at the boat launch on Pierce Island, directly across from Portsmouth's commercial fish pier (non-residents charged a small fee). Paddle south and west through back-channel islands in a sheltered part of the harbor. Three of these islands were recently put under conservation easement by the town of New Castle. Pull up on one of the tiny islands for a break, or continue up Sagamore Creek, a tidal river, past salt marshes, homes, and forests. For a special treat, tie up for a meal at BG's Boathouse Restaurant right on the creek.
• Odiorne Salt Marsh, Hampton, N.H. An easy paddle through the salt marsh that surrounds two creeks, Berry's and Seavey. Add hiking at nearby Odiorne Point State Park or a visit to the Seacoast Science Center—great places for kids to stretch their sea legs.
• Mt. Desert Narrows, Acadia, Maine. A sheltered trip in the first national park east of the Mississippi, this outing gives you the chance to see nesting bald eagles, seals, and porpoise. The narrows includes several islands, including the tiny and well-named pair, The Twinnies, but Thompson Island provides the only island landing spot. Paddle during high tide or risk being beached by the extensive mudflats around Thompson.
• Jordan Pond, Acadia, Maine. Jerry Monkman recommends a paddle in deep freshwater Jordan Pond as part of a perfect outing that hasn’t been improved on in more than a century. Paddle mile-long Jordan Pond from south to north, passing below steep granite cliffs on Penobscot Mountain and watching for loons and mergansers, which nest on the pond. At the pond's northern end, pull out for a short—about 0.5 mile—trial hike to the top of The Bubbles, two pink granite domes. Your Jordan Pond adventure isn't complete, Monkman says, until you've ordered tea and popovers at the Jordan Pond House, which has been serving afternoon tea since the 1870s.
• Seal Cove toward Pretty Marsh, Acadia, Maine. The Monkmans describe a 10-mile roundtrip paddle from Seal Cove to Pretty Marsh in Discover Acadia National Park—probably too much for young paddlers—but there's plenty of beauty in a shorter trip along the shoreline. Round the corner heading north from Seal Cove for a view of bigger water: islands, starting with nearby Moose Island and blue ocean beyond.

Learn more
- Cape Cod: Video of Michael O'Connor, author of Discover Cape Cod, paddling on Gull Pond
- Maine: Maine Association of Sea Kayak Guides
- Southern N.H.: Portsmouth Kayak Adventures for rentals and instruction

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

I enjoy being able to include other voices and other experiences in this blog. My most recent guest blogger is no stranger here: He’s my husband, Jim Collins. On a hot, muggy day recently, Jim took Ursula and Virgil to one of his favorite swimming holes. Here’s his story.

When you grow up in rural New Hampshire, it’s easy to develop some expertise on swimming holes — or at least some strong opinions. When I say “swimming hole,” I don’t mean a lazy river or a quarry: I mean places where the quirks of geology and hydraulics have created beautiful or fun and sometimes magical little places to swim in fast-moving water.

Over the years, I’ve visited dozens of swimming holes, each different: Slippery rock sluices. Small, perfectly formed “Jacuzzi seats” in frothy whitewater. Secret ledges behind water falls. Cascading pools. Covered-bridge canopies. Bleached granite boulders in wide-open sunshine. Shaded, ferny glades. Wide flat surfaces with supplies of perfect flat skipping stones. High and low ledges for jumping and diving. And now that Ursula and Virgil are growing up in New Hampshire, too, we explore them together. The criteria have moved along with the kids’ ages, though the best swimming holes offer multiple attractions.

This week we hiked in to one of our favorites: Emerald Pool, off the Baldface Circle Trail in Evans Notch. We got onto the trail just north of AMC’s Cold River Camp. It's a good jumping-off place for the hike in to the pool.

As White Mountain swimming holes go, Emerald Pool is on the small side, like a gem. It’s a little over half a mile of easy walking from the trailhead. For adults, that’s just far enough to work up a sweat and feel as if you’ve earned the swim. For the kids, it’s close enough to keep the focus on the swimming and not the hiking, but far enough away from cars and roads to create the feeling of a separate, hidden world.

The day was hot and steamy. The kids, along with a couple of their friends, skipping and dashing ahead of me, heard the water first, several minutes before we reached the cut-off trail down to the stream. That’s another nice feature here – the gradual building of the anticipation. That anticipation has been rewarded, on earlier trips, by the sudden, startling appearance of Emerald Pool itself, whose shimmering green water gives the pool its name and whose sun-dappled, fairylike setting can, indeed, make this feel like a separate, hidden world, especially when we’re the only people there.

This week, the sound of rushing water was joined by shouts and laughter, so we knew we wouldn’t have the place to ourselves. As it turned out, teen-aged girls from a camp in Oxford, Maine, were making a day trip here. One after another after another, the girls jumped off a 12-foot-high ledge into the middle of the pool, splashing and laughing and scrambling up the wet rocks and muddy bank to do it again. Run-off from heavy rains overnight had carried silt into the stream, not enough to muddy the water, but enough to turn the green pool to gold-amber. Ursula, who values emerald, fairylike settings almost as much as she does water, frowned in disappointment. She led her friends through the woods, upstream from the swimming hole, choosing to explore the rocks and mini-pools and eddies while waiting for the crowd to leave. Alas, the girls were in no hurry. One of the campers and one of the counselors had set a goal of 50 jumps off the high ledge, and as they got closer — 47, 48, 49 — each jump was met by shouts of encouragement and cheers.

Ursula eventually gave in and came back and joined in the fun. She jumped off the ledge herself into the icy water, and beamed as she popped back up in the current. And did it again, and again. Her friend Mercy overcame her nervousness and jumped from a lower ledge on the opposite side of the pool. I didn’t ask questions, but it seemed like a first for her. The fearlessness of the campers might have inspired her.

On the way home we stopped at the Stow Ice Cream Place on Rte. 113 for cones scooped high with another summer treat, Maine-made ice cream. And I was reminded: each swimming hole is different, and sometimes the same swimming hole is different at different times. And each trip has its own rewards.

Learn more
- If you have some extra time, combine your swim at Emerald Pool with a first-class White Mountain day hike on the Baldface Circle Trail.
- The editors of New England Waterfalls have included Emerald Pool in its list of the premier 30 swimming holes in New England.

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

I recently tried out AMC’s online guide to the White Mountains. I’ve been intrigued before but haven’t taken the time to register. What finally got me to take a look at it was a new list of “Top 25 Hikes for Kids” that includes maps and detailed, printable trip itineraries.

As I’ve said here before, I’m attached to my guidebooks. My favorites become decorated with sticky tags and annotations, guides to my life outdoors. Still, the chance to put maps and hike descriptions together, and to print out only what I need for a particular trip seemed attractive.

After I became a member of the White Mountain Guide Online community, I clicked over to the map of the White Mountains and selected “Hikes with Kids” in the “Suggested Hikes” category. The list of 25 hikes showed up on the right side of my screen.

These hikes are culled from AMC’s Best Day Hikes in the White Mountains guidebook. I recognized such family favorites as the trail to Lonesome Lake from Lafayette Campground and the easy walk to Elephant Head ledge on the Webster-Jackson trail. The list focuses on hikes to waterfalls, lakes, and the classic family-friendly summits like West Rattlesnake in the Squam Range.

I printed out maps and routes for several hikes we’d like to try this season. I noticed that the online community also contains reports from members, updates on trail conditions and, especially, the ability to create and print out custom routes. I’ll check back during my 30-day free trial.

Trying out the White Mountain Guide Online doesn’t mean I’m ready to pack up the guidebooks on my bookshelf. Whatever hike we choose, I’ll still read their longer descriptions and essays for context and history before we actually hit the trail.

Learn more
... White Mountain Guide Online

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

On a recent Saturday morning, Jim and I stood at our kitchen counter and looked at the weekend puzzle, trying to figure how we might fit the chores, the errands, and a bit of work into a day. I needed to be in town for a few hours; he was hoping to finish a project.

“Would you be OK if I let Ursula and Virgil ride their bikes to Cam’s house?” Jim asked. Cam lives at the far end of our dirt road, about five miles away. Neither of our children have ridden their bikes that far alone. I rode down the road in my mind, counting the steep downhills (three) and uphills (none of note), the traffic (minimal), the route-finding (pretty straightforward). I could imagine Ursula handling all of it. She’s 12; she’s taken shorter solo rides. It would be a fun adventure for her. Virgil? At 7, he’s an enthusiastic but wobbly rider.

Jim and I made a pact about safety issues before Ursula was born. We agreed that the person with the lowest tolerance — the person who said, “I’m not comfortable with this” — got the final say, no questions asked, no debate. It’s worked well for us. So when I said I didn’t feel comfortable sending Virgil on such a long and difficult bike trip for his first bike ride without one of us, Jim didn’t press the point. But I was fine if he accompanied them on the ride, and then rode back home to work.

Problem solved, hazard avoided — right?

I was on my way home when I got the call: Jim and Virgil were headed to the emergency room; Ursula was safe at Cam’s. Virgil had taken a pretty bad fall right before they reached Cam’s house. He hadn’t crashed on the downhill — he’d shown impressive caution and control, Jim said — but trying something new. Jim had showed him how to stand up on his pedals to get more power going uphill. Somehow, his front tire had clipped Jim’s back tire and Virgil and his bike had tumbled down a steep, wooded embankment.

A young resident at the ER gave us the official diagnosis: dislocated elbow, fractured ulna bone in his left arm. In the days since we brought Virgil home with that arm in a cast, I’ve been thinking about what happened, wondering if we should have done something differently.

Several years ago, as part of a book discussion through the kids’ school, Jim and I read The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by psychologist Wendy Mogel. I liked the parenting book, which draws on Mogel’s years of experience as a family counselor and her knowledge of Jewish teachings. After Virgil’s accident, I pulled it down from my shelf and turned to the chapter of the same name.

“There is a Hebrew phrase, tzar gidul banim, that refers to the ubiquitous pain of raising children,” Mogel writes. “We parents go through years of emotional anguish as we raise our kids, but tzar gidol banim also refers to our children’s pain. Without it they cannot grow strong.” That is, a parent’s duty is not to protect children from every conceivable situation where they might get hurt, but to let kids take reasonable risks and learn from the consequences. I felt better after reading the chapter, but still, it was about the blessing of a skinned knee, not a broken arm.

As I was about to close the book, I noticed the word “broken” in the epigraph: “Better a broken bone than a broken spirit.” I thought of Virgil, how he’d handled the long wait in the ER and all its accompanying poking and prodding, his stoicism when the residents had to redo the first cast, his bravery after the fall. I considered how well he’s moved on and found new joys in the summer.

I’d still choose a successful ride to Cam’s over the accident if I could. But I would say that Virgil’s spirit has grown a bit because of this broken arm. And the cast comes off, we hope, before school starts.

Learn more
.. The Blessing of a Skinned Knee

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

The most extensive alpine zone in the eastern United States is in the White Mountains. I’d say that we knew this before our recent hike up to Mt. Lafayette, but not exactly. I’d pointed out to Ursula and Virgil the line between forest and treeless slopes on Mt. Washington, the Presidential Range, and Franconia Ridge from plenty of vantage points down low. But the hike to Greenleaf Hut, below Mt. Lafayette, gave them their first real chance to stand above treeline in New England.

On our hike up to the hut, Jim introduced Ursula and Virgil to one of the best words in the White Mountains: krummholz. This German word does some poetic justice to the stunted, twisted, tough balsam forests that mark the boundary of the alpine zone.

It took joining a talk by Brian Fitzgerald, the naturalist at Greenleaf Hut, however, for me to make a deeper connection between being above treeline and the alpine zone. Fitzgerald, a recent graduate of the University of New Hampshire, explained that the alpine zone in the White Mountains is the remnant of a tundra ecosystem that existed after the last glaciers retreated in what is now northern New England. As the climate warmed, the plants and animals of the tundra retreated to higher elevations. They’ve existed in the zone above 4,500 feet for the past 10,000 years.

Plants in the alpine zone have adapted to its harsh conditions, Fitzgerald explained, by growing in tight clumps close to the ground, like pincushions. It may take a plant up to 8 years to gather enough energy to produce a single flower, and decades to cover a patch of ground as big as a footprint.

He passed around photos of plants that grow in the alpine zone, including diapensia, whose five-petaled white flowers we’d see the next day on our walk up Mt. Lafayette, and dwarf cinquefoil, a federally endangered plant that grows only on Mt. Washington and Mt. Lafayette. We didn’t see that tiny plant, or its ¼-inch yellow flowers, but I gained a new appreciation for the fragile beauty of all plants in the alpine zone.

No kids sat in on the after-dinner talk that night. Ours were more interested in playing cards with some of the other kids at the hut. I asked Fitzgerald later how he teaches children about the alpine zone. Lots of school and camp groups come through the hut, he told me. “I give them a lot of the same information,” he said, “but I just do it in a slightly different way” — by making it a game of Jeopardy and splitting the groups into teams. Among the questions he asks the teams: list 3 characteristics of plants in the alpine zone, name 2 flowering plants in the zone, and give the length of the growing season, name one location where you can find the alpine zone. (Wonder about the growing season? 60 to 70 days…)

In Fitzgerald’s experience, the boys and girls who play “Alpine Zone Jeopardy” also come away with an appreciation for the fragility and beauty of life up high in the White Mountains. “I tell them we didn’t know even a generation ago how much it harms those plants to walk on them. They’re growing up knowing this.”

Fitzgerald also tells them that plants in the alpine zone don’t have any options if the climate continues to warm. “It would be a real loss” if kids could no longer hike up to a high hut and see a small bit of the arctic.

Learn more
• Greenleaf Hut
• Mt. Lafayette
• White Mountain Wildflower Program
• Mountain Watch Program
• AMC Field Guide to the New England Alpine Summits

Photo from Mount Washington Observatory: Dwarf Cinquefoil (Potentilla Robbinsiana), is federally protected and is the rarest alpine plant in New England; found only on Mount Washington and the Franconia Range. The plant appears to grow out from under the rocks. Bryan Yeaton Photo.

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

In an ideal world, I would have read “Youth Gone Wild: Essential outdoor gear for kids,” by fellow AMC blogger Matt Heid, before our recent hut trip. Heid, who writes AMC's "Equipped" blog, knows a thing or two about gear — and about kids, too. (Here’s the start to his article: “Those dang kids. They’re small. They’re tall. They’re everything in between. And tomorrow they’re completely different all over again.”)

After reading Heid’s article, I might have tried harder to talk Ursula out of hiking in a cotton T-shirt. Cotton, Heid reminded me, gets wet, stays wet, and loses any heat-retention capability, while synthetics and wool hold onto body-warmth, even when wet. (We were hiking in hot humidity, so I wasn’t really worried about Ursula losing body heat — but it would have been nice if her sweat-soaked shirt dried overnight.) At least I packed the polypro long underwear that Heid suggests, and the fleece and the rain gear.

Heid offers common-sense advice on shoes, hiking pants, and backpacks, too. It’s taken us several seasons of trial and error to arrive at his recommendations on pack size and type for younger hikers. On last week’s hike, Virgil was proud to carry a small hydration pack that had enough additional room for snacks, a windbreaker, and a whistle. Ursula, four years older and a more experienced hiker, carried all her personal gear in a daypack, total weight about 15 pounds, and felt a similar pride.

By the time I had children, I had two decades of experience in the outdoors. I knew what to take on a backpacking trip in any season. I’ve learned, though, that bringing children up on the trail requires rethinking gear for all of us. And sometimes in the middle of the family circus I forget what I used to know.

Reading Matt Heid’s article made me realize that a dash of parental wisdom is also “essential outdoor gear” for children and reminded me that I have some lessons to communicate to Ursula and Virgil. Next time, we talk about the cotton T-shirt.

Learn more
"Youth Gone Wild: Essential outdoor gear for kids" (AMC Outdoors, July 2010).

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

A few lessons learned (or re-learned) from a recent family overnight at Greenleaf Hut:

The best all-time motivating method. Our youngest and most reluctant hiker can still be motivated by what we call the “Hansel and Gretel” ploy. His sister runs ahead with a bag of treats. He follows, searching for those she’s hidden along the way. Sometimes the treats are on top of a rock in the middle of the trail, sometimes in little nooks and crannies of the sort that would appeal to a woodland elf. Ursula kept count and so did Virgil: Some large number of M&Ms, raisins, and crackers later, they were off by only one — an M&M Ursula found still in its (too-good) hiding spot on the way down!

Best new motivating method. The Trail Mini-Olympics grew out of a game we made up to keep Virgil cross-country skiing last winter. He tweaked it for the hike: push-ups with packs; hopping on one foot; running in place; you get the idea. We rotated events, he kept score for all of us. It got him through the tough middle of the hike up to the hut.

Items we’re glad we packed. Working headlamps for each one of us. Fun play for the kids (and safety for the middle of the night); reading lamps for the adults. No need for the extra batteries, but glad we had them, just in case.

Item we wish we’d packed. A small washcloth or hand towel would have made the four of us a little less grimy and a little less sticky, for not that much more weight.

Item envy moment, again. Upon seeing other bunks laid out with lightweight sleeping sacks, I said, not for the first (or second) time, “We should make some of those.” Now if I can just hold onto the thought long enough to sew sheets into sacks before the next trip….

High point of the trip for the kids. Staying up until lights out playing the card game B.S. with new friends.

High point of the trip for the parents. Hiking (almost) to the top of Mt. Lafayette on a cloudless, blue-sky morning after breakfast.

Greatest family moment. The final push had gone on a while, and we were just about out of steam when Virgil caught sight of the hut. He ran ahead and through the door. Moments later, he ran straight back out again and right into Jim’s arms, where he exclaimed, “This is sooo worth it!”

Learn more
• Games, tips, and ploys for motivating kids on the trail: “The Right Trail and Candy Motivate a Reluctant Hiker” and “More Tips…”
• Greenleaf Hut information
• White Mountain Huts Fact Sheet: includes a list of what to bring (wash cloth and hand towel mentioned…)

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

“It’s a leech!” The cry came from the kids in the water. Friends of Ursula and Virgil were visiting, and all of them were down at the pond.

“Catch it! Catch it!” That was Anna, or maybe Amber. The two girls had buckets of water on the dock and had set up a leech farm. A half dozen of the sinuous creatures swam in each bucket already, but Amber and Anna were happy to add to their stock. Amber scooped a leech out of the bucket. She held it up close to her face. It curled into a fat ball, then lengthened in attempted escape. She expertly turned her hand along with the leech, watching it. “Can I try?” asked one of the smaller kids.

Lots of kids, and adults, too, are afraid of leeches and other creepy crawly slimy animals. The leeches in our pond can be long, six inches or so, with two lines of bright orange or red spots along their tops. They often travel in squadrons of five, like fighter pilots, the lead leech slightly out in front, its mates in formation on either side. Otherwise brave people have fled the water after catching sight of a leech squadron heading in toward our beach.

But not these kids. They fanned out with nets, buckets, and bare hands, looking for the coolest, grossest, most scary animals they could find. Liam, Ian, and Evie hunted crayfish that lurked in the shadows of overhanging bushes, hoping to find the big one they’d glimpsed earlier, the one they’d dubbed “Mr. Pinchy.”

Rayna and Adam stalked the sentry bullfrogs along the shore. They had discovered that captive bullfrogs needed to be kept in isolation, or the larger would take the opportunity of imprisonment to eat the smaller. “No cannibalization allowed!” Rayna declared.

What repulses us can also attract us. The slick green frogs with their wide hinged mouths were beautiful when they croaked, the yellow pouch below their jawline pulsing out with each deep note. But not when the bottom half of another frog squirmed in that same mouth. Then they were monsters — real-life ones, not the ones in books or on TV. And the realness, I think, was a big part of the attraction for the kids. They stared at the creatures from two inches away and studied the colors, felt the textures in their wet hands, tried to mimic sounds and motions. The edge of fear added a thrill, a sense of the visceral, the elemental.

“I used to be afraid of leeches,” eight-year-old Adam said, to no one in particular and to everyone. “Used to” might have been that morning, or the first 20 minutes on the dock. Now he said, “I gotta go catch more things that scare me.” Off he went, looking for more marvelous monsters.

Learn more
… about leeches
… about crayfish. (Ours, I'm sorry to say, is likely an invader species, the rusty crayfish, and probably introduced to our pond by a fisherman.)
… about bullfrogs. (This National Geographic video shows bullfrogs eating, well, just about anything.)

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

When we bought our house here on Orange Pond 13 years ago, motorboats buzzed circles around the shoreline on sunny summer weekends. Down at the public landing, which runs through our land, we filled trash bags with discarded bait containers, fouled fishing lines, broken bottles and plain old garbage.

At times, we worried that we weren’t really getting the front row seat to wild nature that we hoped this place might someday provide for our kids. We put up a sign at the landing introducing ourselves as the landowners. After that we saw less trash. A couple of years ago, the pond received an electric-motor-only designation. The lake quieted. Loons began to visit.

At first the big black-and-white diving birds came only to dine out on the trout that a New Hampshire Fish and Game truck dumps into the pond each spring. (Our neighbor, a hunter and savvy observer of wildlife, is convinced that loons actually follow the boxy “fish van” from lake to lake.) Then they seemed to use the pond as a stopover to and from their breeding territories in the spring and fall. We saw them make their characteristic bellyflops onto open water when the pond is still half iced over. Sometimes, they even graced us with their haunting wails and tremolos. Finally, we started seeing pairs together on the water, seeming to check out the neighborhood like newlyweds looking for a good place to raise a family.

This year, the pond apparently passed the test. Two loons settled down in May. They built a nest at the end of a marsh. Lucky for us, they were just close enough to our dock that we could check on them through binoculars, but not so close that our presence ruffled their feathers. Also lucky for us, Ursula and Virgil are old enough to be interested, too.

We watched them on the nest for a month, all the way through the Fourth of July weekend. Loons are water birds — they spend a good portion of their lives under water, catching fish — and we could see how ungainly they were on land every time they exchanged nest duties. Last Monday, we heard the loons calling and calling in a frenzy we hadn’t heard before. We hurried down to the dock and saw a little dark fluffball tumble from the nest to the water and immediately be folded under its mother’s protective wing. (Dad was still on the nest, making all the noise, as if to say, “We have a baby!”)

The second egg in the nest did not hatch, in spite of Dad’s efforts. Susie Burbidge, a field biologist from the Loon Preservation Committee who tracks loons in the western part of New Hampshire, explained to us that the biologists like to give loon eggs some extra days beyond 30, just to be sure.

On Friday, Ursula and I paddled out with her to take a look at the nest. It’s been a good season for “her” lakes — ours is one of several new ones in the area with nests and babies. After Susie had collected the egg from the nest (the Loon Preservation Committee will freeze it for later testing, to see if something inside went amiss), we floated for a while in the canoe, watching the loon family on the other side of the lake. The chick, a bigger fluffball now, rode on top of a parent’s back, then bobbed alongside, then followed in parental wake like a tiny water-skier. Ursula asked Susie what it was like to be a field biologist, nodding at Susie’s answers (yes, she spends a lot of time outside; yes, she’s been in other beautiful places; yes, she loves animals).

The Loon Preservation Committee understands the importance of raising new generations of loons, which are considered a threatened species in New Hampshire, and of raising new generations of human beings who care about loons and other wildlife. The nonprofit is hosting a family-friendly Loon Festival at its headquarters in Moultonborough, New Hampshire this Saturday, July 17, from 10 am to 2 pm.

Last summer I took Virgil, then 6, to the festival. He ate his fill at the cookout, spent an hour at the crafts table, got his face painted and balloons twisted into cool shapes, answered loon biology questions for the chance to dunk a field biologist, and didn’t want to leave when it was time to go. Neither of us knew that a year later, we’d be celebrating loons again — without even having to leave home.

Learn more
... Junior Naturalist: "What's black and white all over (with a spot of red)?"
... the Loon Preservation Committee's Loon Festival

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

I’ve written here before about Michelle Obama’s efforts to address childhood obesity by encouraging children and families to spend time together outside. Last month, the First Lady unveiled a program through the National Parks Service called “Let’s Move Outside, Junior Rangers!”

As government programs go, it’s not much. Kids who participate in at least one physical activity in pursuit of a Junior Ranger badge at a participating national park will earn a special sticker designating them as a “Let’s Move Outside” ranger.

I don’t knock stickers — they’ve motivated my children to get their immunization shots and their teeth cleaned, both of which seem much less fun than doing something physical outdoors. And I certainly don’t knock the long-running Junior Ranger program. Ursula still has the badges she’s earned on trips we’ve taken to national parks. Each time, she spends several hours — sometimes more — going through the activities in each park’s Junior Ranger booklet. The books teach her about the park’s plants and geology, and about safety and Leave No Trace guidelines. She answers questions, draws pictures, goes on the scavenger hunts, even prepares for a final quiz from a ranger. Her badge from Mt. St. Helens touched off a fascination with volcanoes that hasn’t subsided, and she’s collected others from Mt. Rainier, Yellowstone, Yosemite. I think part of the reason she cherishes her Junior Ranger badges is that she feels she’s really earned them.

But the First Lady’s program doesn’t seem to be carrying over to the parks themselves, at least not on their websites. Of the 20 parks across the country that are supposed to have put the “Let’s Move Outside, Junior Ranger!” program into practice, I’ve taken a look at the websites for three near the AMC region — Great Smoky Mountains and Fort Dupont and Rock Creek in Washington, D.C. — and see no mention of the program or of Michelle Obama’s call to (physical) action on the part of America’s children. Stickers or no, that seems a lost opportunity to me.

That said, I found an event listing, just by looking around one park website, that I think our kids would enjoy. It’s “The Long Arm of the Law” at Minute Man National Historical Park in Lexington, Mass. Several times on Saturday afternoon, July 10, a “motley group of offenders” will be brought before a Colonial-era magistrate. The description asks, “Will the defendants be fined, sentenced to be flogged, or perhaps exonerated?” I might have to explain flogging and exoneration, but I have no doubt that Ursula and Virgil would want to check this one out.

And maybe checking it out is what Michelle Obama’s program is all about — there’s a surprising amount of fun stuff to do with kids at our national parks, with or without the stickers.

Learn more
... about what's happening this summer at the national parks

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

We've heard it from the experts: Families don't eat together any more; children don't spend enough time outside; parents and children spend too little time together. Here are two experts who have discovered a time-honored ritual that solves all three problems: Cook a meal — or two, or many — with your children outdoors.

Learning the Basics

Sara DeLucia, AMC's adventure programs manager, oversees Camp Kitchen 101, an introduction to backcountry cooking that goes from soup to nuts — and also from stove to pot, and water filter in between. She says that cooking outdoors with children presents adults with the "opportunity to be mindful."

Be safe. Above all, DeLucia says, be safe. Don't let five-year-olds light stoves. Always treat water before drinking. Demonstrate the principles of the stove, and how to minimize fuel use by having everything lined up ahead of time: food ready to go, water at hand for cooking and cleaning. If using a water filter, let kids take turns pumping to fill pans and bottles. If boiling water, set a five-minute goal and let them watch the clock while the pot boils.

Reduce packaging. DeLucia encourages parents to demonstrate how to reduce packaging. She advises them to repackage food into reusable or lighter-weight containers before trips. (Resealable plastic bags are hard to beat for convenience, and can be used to hold smaller, measured quantities of ingredients bought in bulk.) Cut cooking instructions out of boxes and place them with the repackaged ingredients. Label spices and other cooking essentials — you want children to know if they're adding salt or sugar to that pot!

Think quick. When planning menus, think of quick-cooking, yet filling foods like pasta and rice. Such simple fare is often the key to turning hungry hikers into happy campers.

Leave no trace. DeLucia advises the groups she teaches to leave no trace of their cooking. Use stoves for cooking in areas without designated fire rings or where collecting firewood can harm camping locations. Don't burn trash: Pack it out.

Share your knowledge. In all of her tips, DeLucia encourages parents not only to share the chores but to share their thinking with children, as well.


Creative Campfire Cooking

Sally Needell has led girls on camping and paddling trips for Aloha Camps in Fairlee, Vt., for more than four decades. "Outdoor cooking is a wonderful thing to do with kids when you have the time," she says.

Her camp cookery often results in bonding and lifelong memories that come from silliness, ingenious recipes, and the most elemental of heating methods — an open fire. Because some of her most inspired recipes make use of Dutch ovens, cast-iron pots with tight-fitting lids placed directly on hot coals, they may be more useful on group camping trips or on backpacking trips that set up base camps.

"Belly bread." One of Needell's innovations — body-heated bread — has become legendary at Aloha. The recipe begins with flour, sugar, and yeast premixed in resealable plastic bags. Kids add warm water and lightly knead the mixture inside the bags. (Needell recommends bringing a back-up bag of dry mixture to add to bags that become too soggy.) Campers then carry their bags between shirt and skin for about an hour—something they can do even while hiking — allowing the warmth of their bodies to work on the dough. "The dough doesn't rise," Needell admits, "so much as it 'rests.'" To make cinnamon rolls, roll out the dough on a baking sheet or pan with a Nalgene bottle. (Needell's voice of experience: "Check that the pans fit inside ovens before packing them in.") Butter the dough, sprinkle it with brown sugar and cinnamon, roll it back up, slice it, and cook the treats in the Dutch ovens. Another lesson learned from experience: Place several heated rocks inside each oven for more even cooking. And if you want to wake up to warm rolls, nestle the ovens containing the cinnamon rolls in hot coals at the end of the evening. They'll be ready and still warm the following morning for breakfast.

Pizza dough can be carried as "belly bread" as well, rolled out, and cooked in a pan or on aluminum foil laid over a fire grate.

Pocket stews. Many of Needell's meals are cooked in aluminum foil, a flexible, lightweight alternative to Dutch ovens. She often includes "pocket stews" on camping-trip menus. Campers chop vegetables and add cheese, beans, or meat to their foil "stew pots" as they wish. (Middle school students and older are ready for the jackknife safety talk. "If you've got the time, it's a teachable moment," she says.) Kids can twist and fold their foil pockets into shapes — swans are a favorite — to tell them apart on the coals. Again, the method is as important as the food. The experience is what counts. And as Needell points out, "Everything already tastes better on the trail."

"Cast Iron Chef." Needell sometimes splits campers into teams of two or three for a "Cast Iron Chef" competition. She gives them the same set of ingredients and challenges them to come up with tasty new recipes. She's seen the trick — turning a chore (and perhaps a depleted food bag) into a test of skill and creativity — work equally well in small groups, too.

Like any good cook, Needell knows that the ritual of preparing a meal together can result in more than simply sharing food, whether the cooking occurs in a fully stocked kitchen or in a camp kitchen. She starts every one of her recipes with the same key ingredient: "If you have the time..."


Learn more
Read "Backcountry food tips" (AMC Outdoors, April 2009) for more on camp cooking with children.

Photo credit: Jordan Silverman, Aloha Camps.

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

“Strawberry moon” is the name the Algonquin gave the first full moon of summer. Here at Orange Pond, we can see why: The meadow by the pond is full of ripe red berries. These are wild strawberries, not the plump mouthfuls we buy at the store or at pick-your-own places. Even ripe, they’re often no bigger than a pencil eraser, and more tart than sweet.

Like many wild things, wild strawberries aren’t easy to see, even when they’re everywhere. The other day I showed Ursula and Virgil how to look under a plant’s dark green, sawtoothed leaves to find the berries beneath. Once we trained our eyes to spot red below the first layer of vegetation, we could tell that the field was full of strawberries.

Even so, our bounty didn’t fill one small bowl. We picked off the berries’ elven green caps and popped the berries into our mouths. We left the house with an empty bowl and returned with one, too.

I hope that we have a clear night for the full moon on Saturday. I’d like us to go back out to the field in the moonlight. I learned to do this by reading “Moon Magic,” an essay in The Singing Wilderness by nature writer Sigurd Olson. In the essay, he described the strange behavior — a restlessness, even dangerous abandon — he saw in wild animals on full moon nights. Here he is watching a deer mouse clamber up the side of his tent on one moonlit night:

Another wild scramble and it was on the ridge rope itself, tottering uncertainly back and forth. Then, to my amazement, the mouse launched itself out into space and slid down the smooth and shining surface of the tent to the ground below. The action was repeated many times until the little animal became expert and reckless and lost no time between the climb back and the sheer abandon of its slide. Faster and faster it ran, intoxicated now by its new and thrilling experience; up along the edge straight down toward the center of the ridge rope, a swift leap, belly down, legs spread wide to get the full effect of the exhilarating toboggan it had found...

The mouse, Olson concluded, had come under the spell of moon magic. “If nothing else,” he wrote, “moonlight made animals and men forget for a little while the seriousness of living; that there were moments when life could be good and play the natural outlet for energy. I knew that if a man could abandon himself as my deer mouse had done and slide down the face of the earth in the moonlight once a month — or once a year, perhaps — it would be good for his soul.”

Slide down the face of the earth in the moonlight. I’ve never forgotten that phrase or the story of the mouse on the tent line, and even though Olson’s words didn’t seem to include me, his spirit did. I’ve seen similar joyful play over the years, participated in some full-moon fun myself. Who knows what moon magic we’ll find under this year’s strawberry moon?

Learn more about…
- the full moon
- wild strawberries
- Sigurd F. Olson

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

I’ve wanted for some time to include other voices in this blog. I wrote here recently about Peter and Caleb Begley and their Father’s Day hike. Peter was a professional photographer and is an enthusiastic hiker and devoted father. It was natural, then, to ask him to share the story of their adventure in both words and image.

Here's Peter’s photo essay:

For Father's Day this year, my son Caleb and I decided to celebrate by undertaking a small adventure in the outdoors together. Over three days and two nights we would hope to cover 11.6 miles and 4,137 feet of elevation gain, spending our first night at AMC's Lakes of the Clouds hut, and our second night at the Nauman Tent Site on Mt. Pierce.



After spending the night with friends in Jackson, NH, Caleb and I woke up around seven o’clock, nibbled on a light breakfast, and headed for our first destination, AMC's Highland Center in Crawford Notch. When we hike in the area we always stop by to check the weather and say hello to familiar faces. We drove to the Ammonoosuc Ravine trailhead and were feeling the springy earth under our trail runners within a few minutes.



The Ammo Trail, as it is often called, is one of my favorite hikes in the White Mountains. The trail meanders through the forest and along several bubbling waterways, provides an opportunity for a quick break at Gem Pool (a very beautiful pool fed by a waterfall), and thereafter begins to get very fun. After Gem Pool the trail begins to steeply ascend Ammonoosuc Ravine. Alternating between stretches of fairly steep rock stairs, large rock slabs, and several more water crossings, the trail is challenging but well worth the effort. The views on the trail and beyond become increasingly breathtaking the higher you ascend, and many sections require a bit of scrambling. All this in three miles!

I was naturally very focused on my four-year-old son's safety as well as his physical ability to complete such a hike. Even though I’m confident of Caleb’s physical abilities and he’s already an experienced hiker, even at age four, the weather in the Whites is always a concern, as is exposure above tree line. Water or ice on the upper portion of the Ammo Trail can make this challenging trail extremely dangerous. The weather report looked very favorable, however, and what I saw on the trail and in the sky throughout the day confirmed that we were hiking in ideal conditions.



If there is one thing my son loves more than anything else when hiking it is scrambling and rock climbing. We hit the first major slab of the hike shortly after leaving Gem Pool, where we stopped for a snack and more water. Caleb immediately started to use his hands and toes to scramble up the most interesting looking line in the rock. I stayed close at first, but increasingly gave him distance as he showed that he was making solid decisions about where and how to use his hands and feet. The distance I allow him on safer scrambles gives him a huge burst of pride and I think some increased maturity, too.



The morning flew by and before we knew it the Lakes of the Clouds hut popped up out of the boulders above us on the trail. Caleb broke into a near run when he saw its roof, and soon we were dropping our packs and refilling our water bottles for a well-deserved rest. After recharging over a tasty bowl of soup, another topping off of our water bottles, and a few hands of cards, we left our packs in the hut and started walking up the trail to Mt. Monroe's summit.

Our initial goal was to hike high enough to attain a solid view northwest into Ammonoosuc Ravine where we would watch for my wife and Caleb’s mom, Megan, to arrive. We also wanted a view east to Boott Spur, where some of our friends would be hiking. After a few minutes we were high enough for excellent views in both directions, but the trail became steeper again and Caleb's motivation kicked up a notch or two. Soon we were taking in the spectacular views from Monroe's rocky summit. Caleb laid back on one of the larger boulders, laced his hands behind his head, and gave a very contented sigh. The look of contentment on his face was priceless and would remain with me for the duration of the evening.


After a solid breakfast the next morning Caleb and I said goodbye to Megan and our friends and began our 5.2 mile trek southwest to the Nauman Tentsite. I planned to keep a very close eye on the weather, as well as Caleb's energy, as the majority of the hike would be above treeline.

Caleb again led the hike and set a healthy but aggressive pace. It felt like only minutes had passed but we soon found ourselves finishing the loop around the east side of Monroe where we could see our entire route for the day before us. I pointed out the route and its peaks to Caleb and we talked over our plans for a few minutes. Eager to get going — I promised him some play time when we arrived at the relative safety of Mt. Pierce's summit — Caleb again set off down the trail.

While we hiked down the ridgeline, I alternated between hiking right behind him and leaving large gaps. On our other hikes to that moment, I’d always felt like I was leading Caleb and giving him instructions. As he led us to Mt. Eisenhower that morning, often out ahead of me by as much as 20 yards, I saw him for the first time as a partner. Though I was still very much looking out for his welfare and ready to snap into Dad-mode, it was enlightening to see my young son confidently picking the route around rocks, calling back to me with information about the trail, even setting our break times.



After climbing Eisenhower, we closed the distance to Pierce in very short order, and soon Caleb was happily playing with his toy jeep on its gentle summit. The bulk of our hiking for the weekend was now completed and we lazily made our way down to the tent site to set up, have a snack, and hang out for the rest of the afternoon.

That evening an incredible show of thunder and lightning descended upon the White Mountains. The thunder was the loudest I can remember ever hearing, and it was incredible to experience the storm from our little tent. I tried several times to wake Caleb up to enjoy the chaos, but my little guy was tuckered and slept soundly through the whole thing.



We woke up early the next morning and broke down the tent together. I couldn’t help joking with Caleb about how he slept through the thunder. We were on the trail before six o’clock. Caleb raced down the Crawford Path, despite the slickness that remained from the previous night's rain. In short order, we were enjoying a well-deserved breakfast feast at the Highlands Center.

It was pretty neat to see my son growing and establishing his independence on the mountain. I felt that I saw him grow in confidence, courage, and maturity over the three days. That adventure with my son will certainly be one of many that we share in the mountains.


All photo credits copyright Peter Begley. Captions:
- Caleb waving hello at one of our first water crossings.
- Caleb takes in the views from the upper portion of the Ammo Trail.
- Caleb scrambling confidently on the Ammo Trail.
- Caleb enjoying the sunset from Lakes of the Clouds.
- The Crawford Path stretches out to the southwest over Mts. Franklin, Eisenhower, Pierce and beyond.
- Caleb napping in the tent after a long day of hiking.
- Caleb zooming down the Crawford Path during the last morning of hiking.

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

Speaking of summer, it is clearly the summer season throughout all 12 AMC chapters. There are — I counted them — 84 outings for the coming weekend, June 26 or 27, listed online under “current trips.” I found trips being led by hiking, outings, paddling, and biking committees, and by family trips committees as well, and by chapters from Washington, D.C., to Maine. Some had already filled, but many others still had openings. Reading through the list, my energy and excitement rose: So many outdoor adventures just waiting to be discovered!

Even listings that weren’t explicitly categorized as “family trips” looked like they’d work well for families with children. For example, a walk through Pelham Bay Park on Saturday, June 26, had a boxed F and N next to it, marking it as open to first-time hikers and new members. The description invited people to join a “park walk on the beautiful Siwanoy Trail in the north Bronx.” It sounds like a hike children would enjoy.

On Sunday, June 27, the Narragansett Chapter is hosting an event that is specifically tagged as a family trip. The short description online called it a climbing trip at Lincoln Woods in Rhode Island, but the longer description makes it clear the trip offers much more than the chance to do a little top-roping. “Casual day in the park to see friends, meet people, and have some fun too!” it says. “Everyone is welcome, including non AMCers. Spend the day or stop by for a little while.” A partial list of activities that are available on June 27 at Lincoln Woods: hiking, climbing, biking, walking, paddling, swimming, running, and fishing!

Also on Sunday, the New Hampshire Chapter is offering a family trips bike ride along the Pemigewasset River to Franklin Falls Dam, just over six miles on an off-road trail. The ride is part of a weekend celebration at Cardigan Lodge of 30 years of family trips through the New Hampshire Chapter. Reservations are required for both the celebration at Cardigan and the bike ride to Franklin Falls.

Have you taken a recent family trip or had an outdoor adventure together? Share it here!

Learn more
- Search for AMC Chapter activities.
- Learn about AMC family adventure programs.

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