How much did childhood experiences influence your interest in backpacking.

I grew up in Portland.

We did hiking when I was little, like 6 years old – Ramona Falls, Humbug Mountain,…

We tent camped at state parks.

When I was 12 I backpacked in Wallowas with my brother. We re-did that just recently, maybe 45 years later.

Did camping and a little backpacking with Boy Scouts.

Backpacking and hiking since.

When I retired 10 years ago I started backpacking a lot more.

My parents met working in a backpacking store , so it's been a whole-life thing for me.

I was a member of very active Sea Scout Troup when I was growing up in Ireland, most weekends we were day hiking, backpacking, along with sailing and canoeing during the summer. My first day mountain hike was when I was about 11 and mountain backpacking trip about 13-14.

I used to go camping and backpacking when I was much younger. When I was in my teens I would organize white water rafting trips/camping with my friends..As I hit my late teens and early/mid 20s I became infatuated with the club and afterhours scene in NYC and that was all that mattered. Then came poker..what a ride! Then I got married and started having kids..so into my 30s I decided to get back into backpacking and camping and I haven't looked back since…
So i guess for me, it was always in me, and I'm pretty sure it always will be.

I'd say my childhood definitely influenced my love for nature with backpacking being a part of that mix. My parents took my brother and I out camping as young as 2 years old. We managed to score a sweet little cabin for $1000/year right on a lake a couple hours from home. My mom was a teacher so while most of my friends played baseball or other organized sports in the summer we spent ours out at the lake wake boarding and fishing and roaming around the hills.

Turned 15 and suddenly I was too cool to go out to the cabin. Partying and getting into trouble and living in big cities had more appeal. Thankfully, in my mid-20's I drifted back to nature. Travelled around the world for a few years getting by however I could and eventually ended up in a little cabin in the Yukon with my girlfriend and a dog. No turning back now. I think we've found a lifestyle that suits us mighty well and backpacking is a big part of it.

We did some car camping when I was less than 7. Then nothing until I went as an adult. Car camping first. Backpacking in my 20's. I love it.

Was car camping for as long as I can remember.. did boy scouts for a while until sports had conflicting times. Did first backpack trip around 15 and kept going from there. Got into rock climbing in college and that includes car camping. Got back into backpacking harder a few years ago and started back up in a lighter way to increase comfort.

Did a few hard day hikes with my dad the last few years and he has to remind himself that he got me into all of this ;)

I camped and backpacked with my dad and boy scouts when growing up. Took a break until my son started scouts 8 years ago. One of the fathers introduced me to packing light techniques and BPL.

I got introduced to camping skills and later to backpacking in the Boy Scouts. When I was about 13, the kids, through Boy and Girl Scouts, had enough basic skills to allow family camping trips without my mother having to do everything (her requirement) which paralleled what my father had grown up doing – Yosemite and the high Sierra in the 1930's as a family.

By age 16, I'd been to all 58 counties in California, every pioneer museum, and all of the fish hatcheries in the State. So when I started doing my own trips with friends, it was (1) get outside CA, (2) camp to save money, and (3) hike around national parks. Then in college, I joined the outing club, met my wife on a gourmet backpacking trip, and now we take our kids along (from bringing our 5-month-old in grizzly-infested Brooks Camp 14 years ago to backpacking Abel Tasman NP and Milford Sound, Fjordlands NP in NZ last week.)

Did a lot of camping as a kid, and got comfortable being out of doors.

My dad was a California State Park ranger in the summers when I was a kid, so I grew up spending months in the mountains. (In fact, my first hike was in-utero!)

And it's been a part of my life ever since.

While we got our kids into the mountains every chance we got, they don't quite have the same passion for it that we do–or maybe they have other passions that are equally strong. Hard to tell…

Not much direct relation for me. We did a bunch of day hikes and some river trips but most of the time I was in the suburbs of Chicago. There's a large patch of woods behind the house though and I, along with my siblings and friends always enjoyed going back there. I didn't get into multi-day backpacking until I took the NOLS Alaska semester. That changed everything.

Although indirectly I'd say I enjoyed time alone and doing things differently. So that laid the foundation for me to be OK to go do things by myself and things that were/are different than the norm.

My parents loved the outdoors and I grew up camping. My Mom was a Girl Scout leader and she provided outdoor skills training for other leaders and helped them put together camping trips for their troops. She also was the camp director/waterfront director for many years at the resident camp in Northern CA. I would spend half the summer at Girl Scout camp with my Mom and the other half camping with my family all across the US. In the fall I'd go hunting with my Dad in Northern Nevada. He wasn't into hunting much, he just loved to camp out in the desert in the fall.

My first backpacking experiences were with the Girl Scouts as a teenager. When I got older, my husband and friends didn't do much camping so I took other hobbies like running and skiing. I started running on trails and doing ultra marathons when I turned 50 and I caught the bug to go backpacking again. My husband isn't into sleeping on the ground and getting dirty; however, he is very supportive of my new hobby. I'm really enjoying the solo trips I've taken and plan to keep backpacking as long as I am able.

If I hadn't been exposed to backpacking in the Girl Scouts and all of the outdoor skills training in my childhood, I don't know if I would have had the confidence to head out on a solo backpacking trip.

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I did Cub Scouts when I was really young. We "camped" twice (three times?), once a year in some cabins on Mother's Day weekend (Mom was not a fan of the scheduling, as it was Dad who took us).

My only other "camping" experience until adulthood was one night (was supposed to be a week, but temps at night were in the upper 80s) at a KOA in Virginia.

How did I get here? Biking. I bought a bike to get around town, then my former family-in-law bought me a better one (that I'm still using, five years and 10k+ miles later). I started riding longer distances and realized that, if I wanted to do that several days in a row, I could do it for cheap and see more by camping out in between riding.

So, the rabbit hole of gear and comfort and longer rides and then backpacking and so much more…and I'm here. Now, I'm working towards my first ultra run, I have a single thru under my belt (of the Foothills Trail in SC/NC), I have innumerable bike tours under my belt (including a cross-FL one this past spring), and I've come to love the outdoors. All because of a stupid little bike. Go figure…

None.

I grew up in Berlin and close to Denmark. I went on a trip into the Cascades with an "experienced" buddy back in 2000, loaded up with about 50lbs, trying to build new fire circles on meadows, no map, no rainfly, 6lbs tent – you name it.

I was stunned at how much I loved where I had been and went from there.

I grew up in an environment where my parents definitely encouraged the general concept of outdoors, adventure, etc., but we didn't really do anything on that front. I maybe camped twice on cub scout trips, although one of those was in a luxurious adirondack shelter.

That said, when I was about 7 or 8, my grandmother gave me a copy of Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels (a fantastic book, although it's very, very out of print to the best of my knowledge), which had a chapter on Yosemite that stuck with me for many years- particularly the section on Half Dome and the cable route.

I finally went to Yosemite in 2010 for the first time at age 24 on a trip with my sister, and did a little bit of day hiking. Part of me wanted to hike Half Dome, but I didn't – something like *that* was obviously for better, fitter people. Not something someone like me would or could ever do. At the time, it was the right choice (I had never "hiked" beyond walking in a patch of nearby woods and was horribly out of shape), but the stories of the "climb" still stuck with me.

I went back to Yosemite in 2012 by myself, after getting off of the couch and in shape, and did the Half Dome hike. To my surprise, it wasn't that bad (still a heck of a dayhike, though) and it started to make me think about challenging myself more in the outdoors. This time, though, my admiration and envy turned to all of the backpackers coming in from the backcountry with their giant backpacks. Their trips sounded fantastic, but I was convinced that what they were doing was for experienced outdoors people- surely not something I could ever do.

Two months later, I stepped onto the trail for my first overnight. Two years later, I finished the JMT. On my monitor, I have the planning spreadsheet for my 2015 PCT thru open on my computer.

Everything I did to get into backpacking, I did in the second half of my 20s (basically the last 2 years), but I'm not sure I would have even had the spark of interest in some of these places if the stories about Yosemite hadn't caught my attention when I was 8.

Grew up in a suburb with a couple of largish, undeveloped areas nearby when I was very young (housing developments took them over within 10 years). My (male) buddy and I could spend all day climbing trees, and playing outside.

Summer camp for a few years with overnight canoe trips (hey, this was Canada!) — which I semi-enjoyed (too many mosquitoes/blackflies — but hey, this was Canada!). Downhill skied in the winter (yeah, this was Canada!).

Probably the key for me was not learning to drive until I was 38 years old, giving me a long history of using my bike as my transportation, and getting me accustomed to being outside a lot.

Started distance running at 30 years old when I quit smoking (hey, this was Quebec!), and ran outside year-round (yes, even in winter). That led to X-country skiing, which led to snowshoeing, day hiking, and backpacking — as well as climbing, alpinism, and adventure racing (which is all of the above, and more).

For me, backpacking isn't an end in itself; it's merely a tool that allows me to see/enjoy places I couldn't get to via day hiking (even 20+milers). I'm kinda digging thru-hiking at the moment, though…which is its own little discipline.

Zero influence. My folks were not into nature at all. I did my first day hike (trail) when I was in my 30s. And I did my first camping trip when in my 40s. None of my siblings do any kind of camping to this day.

My father was a SERE instructor in the Army. He used to blindfold us boys, drive us out to the woods, take the blindfold off and then tell us to find our way home. Never took us longer than a week to find our way back. Even when he dropped us off in Vermont one time.

To this day, if I'm not driving, I prefer to be blindfolded when riding in a car. And I still love the woods.

My parents took us camping a few times, but we never backpacked. My dad had a yellow canvas tent that probably weighed 50 pounds. But they introduced me to undiscovered or at least deserted areas. For Christmas break they always loaded up the station wagon and all 6 kids and drove about 40 hours to the Pacific coast of Mexico. We spent a lot of time on beaches where we would see no people all day.
Then when my older brother, by 14 years, asked me to go backpacking with him later in life, it seemed pretty natural. I haven't been able to stop backpacking ever since.

I grew up in So Cal near a golf course with some adjacent open space with some ponds and a stream. My brothers and I would play around there all day, everyday. My dad took us up to the mountains from time to time but no camping, just day trips. I longed to do so.

When I was in my late teens (when friends or I had vehicles) I started camping. Loved going even if it was just to drink beer and smoke pot with the buddies. I then started taking girlfriends and it was the ultimate date for a young, poor, college student.

I now take my kids. I wish that I had the experiences that they have at their age. I remember laying the tailgate down on my truck and it made the perfect changing table for my 2 year old.

I had always wanted to backpack but did not have the gear. Once I made the commitment to buy it, I rarely car camp anymore. It seems too overwhelming to gather all the gear.

…

When I was really little, my family went camping in my grandparents' RV. A little later, my parents got a pop-up camper. Then we switched to tenting when we camped (always state parks, etc.) and all this was before high school. Late in high school I did some canoe camping with my church youth group, then a few years ago did my first wilderness mountain trip (and realized how insanely heavy all my gear was), and now I carry about 10lbs of gear (mostly still on canoe camping trips, but not always).

I think that early stuff made me like being outdoors, but moving lighter made it easier to get further away from the really common locations, and in more seasons.