Now, the real adventure begins. This is actually a combo post from two camping trips over three different days. That is right, we took Half Calf camping, in a tent, at less than two months of age because let’s face it, he is Alaskan and will have to get used to it anyway.
We won’t lie, we approached this with SOME degree of logic and caution. We did long drives and nice hikes but we were not quite ready to do actual back country camping with him yet. If nothing else, it is because we have to perfect the gear list we need for him still. In fact we almost certainly overdid it on these first trips (we did not repack between them) since the concern was how do you keep a baby warm inside a tent when it is below 40 degrees at night?!? What that really means is we were tent-car camping since that seemed to be a wiser course of action for the first few tries at this. And to be honest, he did great. Momma and Daddy, well, not as good since keeping him warm, safe and happy involved us being colder and more awake, especially Momma since to solution to below 40 degree sleeping was that she slept half out of her sleeping bag with him beside her to ensure he was warm but did not cover his head with the sleeping bag.
But back to the adventures. The first adventure was to hike up Ermine Hill to Kesugi Ridge. We still had Auntie Phu Xuan and Uncle Aaron visiting and since they have both been to see Alaska before, we don’t take them on standard tourist activities any longer. Plus Cory and Thao have previously been up near Denali around Labor Day a couple times, including doing the Kesugi Ridge hike a few years ago, so know that usually the colors are amazing there and wanted to share that with the visitors. Since time and Half Calf dictated we probably were not going to spend three days hiking like it takes for the entire ridge, we opted for going up Ermine Hill, which was one of the prettier areas when we did it previously and has a highway accessible trail. But the first part of the adventure was the drive; remember how the previous post mentioned the new record one hour in the car? Well this one is closer to three hours. Again once he got settled, he did fine and even got to eat on the drive (another first I think).
The hike itself is about 7.5 miles round trip. Half Calf spent the hike riding in his Ergo carrier and sleeping (kid, you are missing all the views, that you probably can’t really see anyway…). Those of us who were awake spent more time in the “bottom lands” than I expected for a hike named after a hill but once you get above tree line the view is amazing. The color was not quite as red (from the blueberry bushes) as we would have hoped but still more than worth the trip. The only problem for us was that it was actually very windy so it was hard to find a place to sit with Half Calf and keep him generally warm.
Afterwards we stayed the night at Kesugi Ken campground for Half Calf’s first camping experience. He got the entire car camping experience. We had a grill, a big tent, chairs, and a camp fire. The concept we came up with for his sleeping arrangement was to stack a couple folded blankets to keep him off the ground, then him in his bassinet, plus wearing a down suit and being covered with a blanket. But as already alluded to, we are not sure if he was cold or not but he was pretty figgity so ended up sleeping on a camp pad in Momma’s sleeping bag, which was pulled way down to keep his head out (and therefore Momma’s shoulders and head, meaning she was cold). But we did survive the night and got home in one piece.
So fresh off the first successful camping trip, we were of course ready to do it again. This time everything was increased. This time we drove all the way to Homer for a couple days, which is about a five hour drive. We were also joined by our friends Bart and Bridget (and Joan Jett) for this adventure. The first day was really just driving and stopping off at a few places along the way to sight see on our way to a yurt we had rented for the night. Yeah, we knew we had two nights planned and based on the lack of sleep last time, were not sure we could do two nights in the tent back to back so came up with a modified plan that worked out quite well. We did not have to worry about keeping him warm since he was camping inside which meant we would sleep better too.
Long before bedtime, Half Calf got kicked out of his first bar. I know, what sort of kid are we raising?!? It was technically for being too young after whatever hour the bar has decided is too late for minors. Side thought: I have an issue with this. I understand why you might have such restrictions and have no problem with you enforcing them. What I don’t like is that you would think something like that could easily be posted on the door so we don’t, for instance, have to wake the kid up to walk inside only to turn around and leave. We actually almost got him kicked out of a bar previously for the same reason. A group of us went inside and ordered food and drinks while Momma fed and changed Half Calf in the car. Then they came and joined us. At which point we were told he could not be in there at that hour. Since we had already ordered they let us finish first at least but yeah, he has for all practical purposes been kicked out of two bars already. Enough of the side thoughts; back to Homer. We did chalk that up as a lesson so went to a different bar and went inside to ask before even taking him out of the car seat. They were much more accommodating so we tried to hurry and not over extend our welcome before heading back for bed.
In the morning we took a water taxi across the bay and were dropped off on a beach to go hiking on the Alpine Ridge trail, which is about 5 miles round trip and spends a lot of time going “up” since there is 1650 elevation gain. And that is from the official trail head, which is off of another trail so you have to add another 500 feet and about half a mile. So we climbed about 780 feet per mile. To put that in perspective, the Ermine Hill hike from a couple days before was about 350 feet per mile. The “first” for today was a boat ride. It was a bit chilly on the water so we stayed inside the cabin once we left the harbor but still were able to see lots of otters and birds on the 20-30 minute trip across the bay. Then we disembarked and the boat left us. We have all been dropped off to go camping in the back country like this before (even the visitors) and we did consider camping here but decided that was pushing our comfort zone for camping with Half Calf at this time. So this was a day trip only.
We hiked. We climbed. We pulled ourselves up with ropes (it is always nice to find a rope on a hard to climb section) and eventually we got to the ridge and it was pretty spectacular. You could look out over the water to Halibut Cove and on across to Homer. You could look down on the Grewingk Glacier. This is actually the first time Momma and Daddy have been here to Kachemak Bay State Park and plan to return to explore some more for certain.
So all in all, two successful camping trips with wonderful family, great friends and amazing weather. But we also decided this is probably the last tent camping for the year but don’t worry, there are sure to be cabin trips in the winter!
