It all started long before our first child arrived, with the simple idea to walk the Pyrenees from coast to coast, a distance of about 900 kilometers (560 miles). Previous experiences in the same mountains were pleasant, and after 3,000 km (1,860 mi) in the Indian and Nepalese Himalaya, walking was almost equal to being. The only real challenge seemed to be making the existential experience of walking in nature as pleasant and healthy for our daughter Flora as it already is for me and my wife, Fany.
By the time we set off on the Atlantic coast, reaching the other coast seemed a dream from the past, just a little too ambitious, but this big dream gave us the motivation needed to carefully prepare ourselves. Besides, at least we got started on some trek. We both get the shivers at the thought of succumbing to social pressures to finally act like we're "supposed" to: buy a car and go for all-inclusive Club Med holidays. So we decided to at least give it a try and see where we would get. As soon as we could no longer guarantee our daughter's safety, which happened 250 km (155 mi) later, we called it quits. Before that point, all three of us enjoyed a trekking and camping experience that I would recommend to any newly expanded family who feels the need to get some fresh air after the first hectic months with a newborn. I would also recommend it to any baby who wants to get to know the parents and the world he or she just entered.
ARTICLE OUTLINE
- Let's Get Some Fresh Air
- Getting Started
- Learning from Experience
- Better Than Going To A Movie
- On the Trail
- At Breaking Point
- The Tricky Parts
- There's a Time for Everything
# WORDS: 4820
# PHOTOS: 17
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Discussion
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I wish I had parents like you!
Great job – she is a lucky girl.
I love it! Great photos. Best of BPL material.
Very Inspiring and delightful! A reminder that we humans are not designed to be sedentary beings; we have millions of years of nomadic wandering in our genes.
THe photographs with all those smiles reminded me what such trips should be all about. How many of the walkers here smile that often when walking? (or at least show it in the photos?)
One idea I had when I looked at the sling Fany used: wouldn't it be great if Aarn Tate of Aarn Bodypacks could come up with a pack that helped to balance the load of a pack and a baby? Surely the sling must have caused some strain on the back at times?
thanks for all your comments!
Answers to some questions:
*other preparation walks: we had taken Flora on a very simple small camping trip when she was just 6 weeks old. close to home, only 3 hour walk, to test the sleeping in tent experience. It rained a lot that night but part from 1 single shout at 4 AM she slept fine that night. We tested the combination of a mousse pad with flora on top and around all of it our fleece, whch worked at that age. We did many more daywalks before leaving and had two weekends in a house, where we improved the sleeping construction, but part from that: nothing else.
*the other nights: usually fine up to 5 or 5:30 AM. As she has the habiit of waking u for first time then, we used that opportunity to get up and leave, she would be tired by the time we left, 30 minutes later, and sleep on in the sling for at least another hour. We had our breakfast while walking. I can't recall any other really bad night, although she did ask for a drink some times, as she also does even now at home, at 8 months almost
*as for the sling and the backpains: not really, no. Once you know how to use the sling, there's no real strain on the back worth mentionning. Sometimes, when the sling is not properly attached, the shoulders did feel some tension, especially when I carried her and then my backpack over the sling. For the combination with a real backpack, there must indeed be a way to make the combination a little more comfortable. Which makes me think: on with the mission for the DIYS backpackers here!
To run with that: you would really need the baby's weight to be taken on the front of the rucksack hip belt while you were wearing the hip belt and only be on the shoulders when the rucksack was off. To take the rucksack's backward pull and the baby's frontward pull off the shoulders you would need a removeable tension band under each arm, joining the sling to the pack. With those done up snug but not tight all the shoulder straps could be loosened off. The baby and the pack would then hopefully be about in balance and as much proportion of the load as you wanted would be on the hipbelt. The hipbelt would need to be comfortable.
More work would be needed with the method of taking the backpack off whilst leaving the baby on.
Reading all those nice comments is like enjoying our walking again… Thanks for your reactions and thanks to those along our way that gave us some nice surprises (an inviation to have breakfast, some bread when the bakery was still closed,a smile, an encouragement…)
The most difficult was absolutely not the walking but having to face the reactions of family and strangers on the forum who called us irresponsible…
thank to butuki for his beautiful sentence "Very Inspiring and delightful! A reminder that we humans are not designed to be sedentary beings; we have millions of years of nomadic wandering in our genes." If you really want to have some more inspiration about walking…check this out http://www.africatrek.com/index.php.
Bringing back an old thread…
What kind of baby wrap/sling was used for this trip?
Thanks.
It was a The 100% cotton Maya Wrap sling. http://www.mayawrap.com/shop/home
Remember that odd couple attempting a traverse of the Pyreneees with their 3-month old baby? Well, they walked the 1000km – although in 4 parts. First with baby (see the BPL article 'Backpacking: baby on board' http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/babyonboard.html#.UUjUJxmBA7A). Later with toddler. By the time she was 2 years and 6 months, Flora had crossed the 1000km, on foot (well, mostly carried of course). The fool / dad wrote a book on it – launched next month in Belgium. Partly on the art of walking with small children (with words of thanks to BPL & the best parts of the heated debate we had mentionned in the book).
I thought you might like this 4 minute movie showing how a thru-hike with a 2 year old in the Pyreneeës is great fun indeed. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=162621733889252
A BPL article will follow …
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