hiking – Page 6 – Mommy Hiker

[Guest Blogger Series] Motivating Little Feet with Letterboxing by John Soltys

Posted on March 3, 2014February 24, 2016 by Jennifer Fontaine

I first heard the term Letterboxing a few weeks ago on the popular #HikerChat tweetchat on twitter and I was immediately intrigued. As you can imagine, I am always trying to find new and exciting ways to keep my 3 year old’s feet and mind motivated on the trail, so I made a beeline over to John Soltys of moosefish.com with an invitation to explain it to us all! Luckily, he accepted and now we have one more tool in our arsenal!

I have three kids. That means there are nine possible answers to the question, “Who wants to go outside?” Regardless of the destination, it always seemed there was some dissent when I tried to rally the kids for an adventure.

Kids aren’t as motivated by views or nature as adults. They don’t feel the need to disconnect from their screens or push pause on their responsibilities. I want to reestablish my place in the natural world. They want to do something.

So now we letterbox and everyone wants to go almost all the time.

Letterboxing is akin to geocaching in that you’re looking for a hidden container. However, unlike geocaching it doesn’t require a GPS or an understanding of coordinates. Instead, you find letterboxes by following clues like this:

Continue for a few switchbacks and there will be a large group of boulders on the left. Go to the top side of the topmost boulder. In the middle, there is an opening under the rock, reach deep and you will find it!

(More devious letterbox planters will encode the clues requiring some work to figure them out. Plan for an extra few minutes deciphering 19-07-04 18-04-02-17-04-19 12-04-18-18-00-06-04. (Hint: It’s a substitution cipher where A=00, B=01, etc. If you have trouble, try the rumkin.com tool: http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/substitution.php))

Each letterbox holds at least a stamp and a log book. (90% of the stamps you’ll find are hand carved and some are true works of art.) When you search for a letterbox you should bring your own log book, your own stamp, and an ink pad. When you find the letterbox you use the box’s stamp to mark your log book and your stamp to mark the box’s log book. Then you rehide the letterbox for the next person to find.

But wait! Some letterboxes will have a mini letterbox inside the main letterbox. These are hitchhikers. The stamps and log books are tiny and they’re meant to be moved from one letterbox to another. We’ve moved hitchhikers between Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and it’s always nice to think we helped them on their way.

You can find letterboxes near you by using AtlasQuest.com. AQ is the best of the letterboxing sites with over 163,000 active letterboxes listed. There are over 80,000 in the United States alone and even letterboxes in places like Antarctica! (Pro tip for iPhone users: Get the app called Clue Tracker. You can ask it for any letterboxes within a few miles of your current location.)

We have a small bag that holds all our letterboxing gear. In addition to a family log book, each of the kids has their own log book and ink pad. (You wouldn’t expect the kids to all like the same color, would you?) We also carry a pair of gardening gloves, a small flashlight, baby wipes (almost as useful as duct tape), and a backscratcher for reaching letterboxes where there might be creepy crawlies.

In the summer of 2013 we took our first family road trip. It took six hours to drive from our home to Bend, Oregon. I’m not sure we’d have made it without letterboxing. We found boxes at rest stops, in parks, and even at Ikea. We found 13 letterboxes over the course of 10 days. Getting out of the car even for just a few minutes to stretch their legs and minds kept the kids sane and that kept my wife and me mostly sane, too.

In addition to finding letterboxes you can plant them, too. Get a waterproof package, carve a stamp, write the clues, and register it on AQ. Don’t forget to make sure you have the permission of the land owner even if it’s a National Forest or wilderness. (Bonus: When you plant a letterbox you get access to “Restricted” boxes.)

Most importantly, letterboxing allows us to have fun outside together. My kids never move down a trail faster than when they’re looking for a rock that looks like a face or a tree with a beard. I don’t know how long they’ll enjoy letterboxing, but while it lasts you can be sure we’ll be carrying our gear whenever we leave home.

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About the Author

I’m a father, a husband, an adventurer, and a hacker. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I never consider leaving, even when it rains for 100 days straight. I dream of days when I can turn off my computer and explore our amazing world with my family.

You can find us where the road heads up into the mountains, tucked against the river, at the end of a dirt road. I write at moosefish.com, tubbssnowshoes.com, and wta.org. I’m on twitter as @moosefish and instagram as mrmoosefish.

Meandering Among the Majestic Monarchs – A Recharging Family Roadtrip

Posted on February 24, 2014April 26, 2016 by Jennifer Fontaine

The day-to-day grind of being a work at home mom can definitely get overwhelming and trust me, I’ve had more than a few Calgon moments over the past few months. Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself very lucky. My husband and I have thriving freelance businesses which allow us the luxury of maintaining our own schedules which in turn, give us more family time, but sometimes the itch to unplug and recharge becomes so great that we just have to “get out of dodge”!

So, needless to say, when my mom told me she was headed up north to Pismo Beach for some meetings, I cleared our schedule and we jumped in the car! Pismo Beach is a sleepy little beach community a few hours north of Los Angeles, up the famous Pacific Coast Highway, nestled in between wine country, state parks, majestic mountains and white sand beaches. It offers peaceful solitude, lazy walks, monumental sunsets and an awe-inspiring Monarch Butterfly grove!

Sometimes, the very act of changing your scenery can adjust your outlook and it was just our luck that our hotel was steps from the white powder-sand beach, the boardwalk and a huge pier, perfect for watching the sunset. Since birth, I have had an affection for the sounds of moving water. When I was younger, I had a secret place I would go to when I needed to be alone. It was basically just a drainage ditch dressed up with rocks and foliage. To me, it was a babbling brook where I could sit in silence for hours contemplating my teenage angst. I think I got it from my mom. She is happiest when the sound of the surf is within earshot.

We whiled away most of the weekend just spending time with each other, searching for sea glass, building sandcastles and running in the surf. On our way back down to Los Angeles, we made sure to stop at the Monarch Butterfly Grove and it just so happened that it was Western Monarch Day. We seriously couldn’t have been luckier!

As we entered the butterfly grove we walked into a full blown festival complete with art activities for the kids, a drum circle, CAKE and educational exhibitions. They brought to life “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and had magnifying glasses for the kids (and adults) to see, up close and personal, the life cycle of the Monarch, starting from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis. It was a beautiful day full of moments we will keep close to our hearts forever.

There’s a very delicate line we must constantly walk, it’s a sweet balancing act between expecting independent play while mommy works and both of us losing our minds. I must say that the outdoors is not only a place for V to run, jump, explore and discover, it’s a shining beacon of sanity for me! If we are cooped up in the house for too long, we both start to lose our minds and so it is into the woods we go (even if mom’s on deadline).

The one thing I’ve learned with our newest adventure in parenting is, when the walls start closing in, it’s exponentially more beneficial to all of us to simply stop and get out on a trail, even if for an hour. There truly is nothing that hits the reset button more quickly than a nature walk. The crunch of the leaves under foot, a distant woodpecker knocking, the sun warming the back of our necks, all aid in calming our minds and bringing the smile back to our faces.

[Movie Review] Tell it On the Mountain – Tales from the Pacific Crest Trail + Giveaway

Posted on January 28, 2014February 24, 2016 by Jennifer Fontaine

For most avid hikers, just the very thought of a thru-hike on the Pacific Crest Trail makes us giddy with excitement; putting our busy lives on hold, pressing the mute button on the stress remote and jumping in with both feet. I certainly have found my self romanticizing the idea, conjuring up the sounds of the majestic wilderness with only my thoughts to keep me company every step of its 2,665 miles. Even while reading Cheryl Strayed’s mind-bending and body-torturous account of her time spent on the PCT, I dreamt up scenario after amazing scenario in which my husband, our 3 year old daughter and I would take on the trail and be victorious…one day.

In 1932, a Pasadena, California man by the name of Clinton Churchill Clarke became captivated by the idea of creating a trail which would span the mountain crests from the southernmost tip of California all the way up to the Canadian border. Joined by Warren Lee Rogers, the two made its creation their life’s work and finally in 1968 the PCT received its designation as a National Scenic Trail. Passing through 25 national forests, 7 national parks and ranging in elevation from sea-level to 13,153 feet, the PCT is the westermost and second largest segment of the Triple Crown of Hiking.

Filmmakers Lisa Diener and Shaun Carrigan gloriously tapped into the full experience of what it means to embark on such a magnificent undertaking, complete with the excitement, the nervousness, the apprehension and, at times the sheer terror of tackling the behemoth Pacific Crest Trail.

Their film, Tell It On The Mountain is part adventure film, part documentary, and part video journal and it follows a diverse cast of characters as they undertake a life-changing journey along the PCT as they find themselves on an ever-present race to finish before winter sets in to the high Washington peaks.

Tell It On The Mountain focuses on half a dozen hikers from different stages of their lives with varying levels of experience in outdoor wilderness survival skills and backpacking long distances. There are hikers from Europe who offer their insights on the treasured vastness, remoteness and beauty of the Western United States. Some hike in groups or pairs, and contend with relationships dynamics that accompany spending day in and day out with another person. Some content themselves with the solitude of going it alone and the personal demons that arise in the face of their aloneness. One couple walks 2000 miles to get to their wedding. Another faces the tragedy of injury and potentially failed dreams.

With each step, these adventurous men and woman must rededicate themselves to their journey. They must reinvigorate their minds and they most certainly test their mental and physical limits, not always victoriously. But, one thing is for sure, the intimate moments they share with us give unique insights into life on the trail and an insider’s view into what it takes to spend half a year living in the wild.

I am so excited to also tell you that the filmmakers have given us TWO copies of the film to giveaway to Mommy Hiker readers, but sorry to say, it is only open to U.S. residents! Good luck!!