Hiking with Littles

Our 3rd day in the mountains was our first hike of the trip. We had planned to head out early in the morning to Cades Cove to hike Gregory Bald, but the gravel road we wanted to take back from the trail to cut down travel time was closed, so we picked a different trail. We decided to head up to Clingman's Dome and hike part of the Appalachian Trail out to Silers Bald, not be confused with Siler Bald.

This trail is considered a ridge hike as it travels across the ridges of the mountains, so there are a lot of "up downs"--the trail isn't just up, it's constantly gaining and losing elevation, with most of it being lost going out to the bald. Within one section of the trail we lost 1,100 feet in elevation in only 1.5 miles. This part of the trail was constructed out of giant man made stone steps, and going down was one thing, but coming back up was extremely tiring and painful. I won't bore non hikers with too much more information about the trail because that kind of stuff can be googled, but I will tell you about our experience hiking with an almost 3 year old and a 7 month old. Funny fact, we later we found out that it's one of the 2 toughest trails in the Smoky Mountains section of the AT.

Visual to show how steep, you start at the AT junction and end at Silers Bald.

My husband just upgraded our Kelty Kids carrier to an Osprey, and he definitely thought the trade up was worth it. The pack has zip up storage underneath the child seat which we didn't have on our Kelty and since we were both carrying kids, we needed that space to pack things such as lunch and snacks. A few of the conveniences that it has are built in rain gear, tons of pockets, a spot for a water bladder, and a removable sunshade and stirrups for kids. I was sold on the pack when I saw that it had stirrups. When going on a long hike, you don't want your toddlers legs dangling uncomfortably for 9 miles, it's not good for circulation and starts to hurt after awhile. The stirrups allowed him to sit in a more natural position, distributing his weight a little better and he had no complaints during either one of our 9+ mile hikes on this trip.

Daddy and Dax hiking with Osprey Pack.

I  wore our 7 month old in an Ergo Performance in the front carry position and my Camelbak on my back. When I first started up the paved Clingmans Dome Trail up to the trail head, I thought I was going to fall over. I was in such pain. My shoulders were burning like I've never felt and my back wasn't far behind, I was almost in tears. When we reached the trail head, I took off the baby and my pack and put them on again, this time with my Camelbak on first, and then the Ergo. What a difference it made! Note to self: put baby on LAST to avoid excruciating, unnecessary pain. After making this change, I was confident about the hike and fairly comfortable. To add to my comfort level, I also wore Lululemon leggings, and they were awesome! They kept me warm and cool at the same time, and allowed me to lift my legs easily over fallen trees and terrible, horrible, man made steps. I usually hike in jeans because I don't like plants rubbing on my legs on the trails, so these leggings made for a nice change.

In my Camelbak, I had my water bladder, flashlight, chap stick, knife, bandaids, tissues, and all of my baby essentials--diapers, wipes, burp cloth, changing pad (because rocks!), and a light muslin blanket. As mentioned before, my husbands pack had our lunches and snacks. I also have a paci clipped onto the strap to avoid losing it and to keep baby calm if needed and I wore a teething necklace which kept him pretty entertained when we were all feeling a little delirious on our last few miles back to the parking lot.

Hiking with my babe.

On trips where we go hiking, I am always so glad that I breastfeed. No extra weight of bottles or a pump. Both of my babies are seasoned "mountain nursers". I totally made that up by the way. It is so easy to stop for a quick break to feed the babe and then continue on our way.

Snack break. It was so cold!

One thing about hiking in the mountains is that there are no bathrooms, so going in the woods is a must unless you want to go home with a bladder infection. My husband and I are used to this, but weren't sure how Dax would do, as he is very particular about EVERYTHING. Well, the time came when the boy needed to pee, so we pulled over onto a fairly flat area and told him that he had to go outside. I am pretty sure he thought we were insane and all of sudden didn't have to pee anymore. We knew he really needed to go so my husband took him behind the tress and made it into a game of aiming to hit a little tree, and luckily that worked. He was pretty proud of his accomplishment and earned himself an ice cream later. (He was really reluctant about the whole thing, almost in tears so he really did earn that ice cream.)

My husband and I both use trekking poles and find that they are incredibly helpful on most trails. I just upgraded his to Black Diamond poles and he really enjoyed them. We could not have finished this trail without them, we both used them to hold our weight, pulling our tired bodies up the last few trail miles.

LOVE the vistas that offer such beautiful mountain views.

You never know how many people you are going to run into, so we always bring a mini tripod to capture a family picture. Believe it or not, the below picture is at Silers Bald. The park does not maintain the bald anymore so it is overgrown, but you can walk through the trees to see the remnants of the bald and it is a fairly big, flat space. We didn't break for too long as the sun was beginning to set and we knew "freezing" temperatures awaited us if we ended up hiking in the dark as it was already about 50 degrees at this point.

Most of our hikes are peak hikes where the whole way up, we are going up and then we pretty much run down the mountain to get back. Unfortunately, this hike was opposite and we had to mainly go uphill to get back, which was exhausting. Hiking back up those steps I mentioned earlier was awful. I felt like someone had ripped out my lungs and started stomping on them. My legs were jello and wanted to collapse. My husband, who had on a 40+lb pack was in pretty bad shape--and he runs 5 miles every morning. It. Was. Rough. We were cold, we were hungry, we were tired. We were grateful when we finally heard cars, and then voices, letting us know that we were ALMOST THERE.

We made it back to the car just as the sun was going behind the mountains and had someone snap this photo for us. Don't we just look wonderful after a 9.3 mile strenuous hike? ;-)