We are entering what I think of as the “in between years” for toddler hiking, around 4ish years old. West is three and half.
We just returned from a long weekend in Moab, where we spent 2 to 3 hours on hikes that ranged from 2 to 4 miles. If you do the math, you will come to the conclusion that we were slow. Very, very slow. Some exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally slow hikes.
I have feared these in between years and found little intel on how people approach hiking with older toddlers.
West will still tolerate being in the Osprey Poco Plus (our gear review) hiking pack for short stretches, but mostly he wants to hike and explore. That’s exciting, but it’s also slow.
It takes all my patience to not hurry him along, when I can still see the parking lot after 20 minutes.
But I don’t want to hurry him, I want him to pick up all the rocks and think they are the most exciting thing anyone has ever seen. I want rocks to make me that excited too. … Then again, sometimes I really do want him to just move it along.
Should you be looking for some hope though about hiking with an older toddler, here are the glimmers of hiking hope I have found in this age range.
The enthusiasm to hike is there… Most days.
He has on occasion yelled, “I hate hiking!” and my heart has broken, but most days he is a willing participant. Most days, even if he resists it, he is so excited once we are out there.
We usually are hard pressed to get him to turn around and go back to the car once he gets exploring. He is so committed to getting over climbing obstacles by himself. He wants to hike on his own. That is really exciting.
We can still carry him in the carrying hiking pack.
We mentioned in our post about our trip to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase that we did an eight mile day on that trip. Most of that he was in the pack. Some of it he even still napped for.
When I get him in the pack, I turn on the turbojets to cover some ground. The only challenge we are coming up against in the winter is that it’s hard to buckle both shoulder straps when he is bundled up. He will outgrow the pack soon.
A slow pace leads to more discoveries.
I found myself on this last trip to Moab staring at the ground and the rocks a lot, which I remind myself is why I am out there in the first place.
Because of this rock meditation, I saw a petroglyph I never would have seen if I was moving swiftly and I found some really neat tools from the ancestral puebloan people (which were left where they were found).
Maybe these are the nature meditation years. The slow years. Goodness knows a little slowness wouldn’t hurt most of us. At the end of the day we are out there and that’s what matters.
