Soon I'll be hiking/bushwalking/tramping with my 7 year old son on the overland track in Tasmania, Australia. I've been keen on getting him on a bigger walk for a while to provide a deeper experience and a chance to do something a bit more remarkable together.
We'll be taking 2 weeks and hope to do a bunch of side trips such as climbing cradle mountain and Mt Ossa.
We've set up a site where others such as his class at school can follow along (we'll be carrying a SPOT) and get some information. I'm setting up content to blog while we're on the trail covering a bunch of topics of the walk.
http://geoffmallinson.com/overland-track
For those on Twitter you can follow me @geoffmallo for updates too.
Subscribe by email or RSS if you're interested.
This trip has provided a few interesting gear obstacles.
Firstly remaining as lightweight as possible. We'll be gone for 2 weeks and he'll only be carrying his sleeping bag, mat and food for that day leaving me with all the shared gear and his food for 2 weeks. My last 2 week walk I carried 12kgs including food but this time I'll have about 11kgs of food alone! We dehydrate our own meals and generally it works out to be 420g per person per day. The weather can be variable with blizzards possible in summer so we need to be carrying a bunch of stuff that otherwise could save weight such as the warmth of our sleeping bags
Secondly there isn't a lot of good kids gear available. We've found a few sources, but generally the quality of materials, design and construction is better suited to someone going on a half day walk than a 2 week thru hike in alpine scenery. I have noticed many of the bigger and better brands now have kids lines such as mountain hardware which has been helpful. While there is still room for improvement such as the materials. I haven't found a kids rain jacket in eVent for example.
