Backpacking with kids

By Dan Vierra Sacramento Bee
Think it might be a major challenge to persuade your online kids to sample an on-trail adventure? Author Tim Hauserman makes it sound easy (and fun) in "Monsters in the Woods" (University of Nevada Press, $15.95, 137 pages). The monsters, of course, are the kids.With humor, Hauserman lays out strategies and advice for parents to help motivate kids to get out into the wild. The reward is a great time with Dad, so he says."To me, backpacking with my children is by far the best time I spend with them," Hauserman writes.He had no problem persuading his two daughters, although he learned what works best. Instead of taking both on a trip, he prefers bringing one and her friend. He also invites the friend’s father.What do I pack? Can I take the dog? Is an infant too young to take backpacking? All these are addressed in this comprehensive how-to of family adventures.Hauserman, who lives in northern California, also wrote "The Tahoe Rim Trail: A Complete Guide for Hikers, Mountain Bikers, and Equestrians" (Wilderness Press, $15.95, 160 pages). He knows his backpacking trails and has great hopes for the younger, high-tech generation.During a field trip to Mono Lake with one daughter, an American Indian medicine man related to the school group how he had been taught to appreciate nature as a child and how he learned to be "part of the river" while fishing."Will our children ever learn that level of appreciation for nature?" Hauserman writes. "Probably not, but if we can help them learn to love nature and understand it, we will be doing them and the planet a great service."