This past Saturday our family decided to venture out on a hike. It is one we have taken our kids on before so we pretty well knew what to expect. It's 2.6 miles round trip and only a small amount of incline so pretty ideal for a family hike.
However, this past Saturday (as you may recall) there was a lot of rainfall. This calling has made me a little more adventurous as I would like to try to put these things I am learning to the test. As we made our way up the hill the trail had water and hail just gushing down the center so we had to either straddle the center, walk on the edge or get really wet.
Thankfully each of our kids have rain jackets and we brought ponchos for us. There was also quite a bit of snow to walk through so your pant legs got wet if they were not already from the water.
There was a lot of tree fall so we had to climb around it or if you are tiny like Ella you can just duck right under it. Do you know this 8 year old girl did not complain! As we walked, we talked about our pioneer heritage and how much harder it would have been to have walked for 3 months instead of just 3 hours. How they were pulling carts and we had a backpack. How we had hot dogs with ketchup and jerky and granola bars and they had flour & water. We talked about how because they endured that, we can face our challenges today because we are strong!
Each one of our kids had backpacks they carried with a spare pair of socks, their water, some snacks, a flashlight, Kleenex and their rain jackets. Ella chose to walk through the snow or take the harder looking path because she felt like that was a little more real to what the pioneers did and she wanted to prove she was strong. We just let her. Again, she didn't complain.
When we got to the top and stopped moving, everybody started to freeze. They were wet, tired, hungry and sadly everything we threw into the backpacks was soaked. There were no dry socks to put on, no dry underwear for the 2 year old and a lot of chattering teeth. Pretty soon the kids started to whine. Ella was wrapping her feet in the most dry head wrap she could find to keep them warm. We had each of our feet inside Ziploc baggies to attempt to keep them dry. It worked for the girls with boots, but with shorter shoes the water still got through the tops. Dustin was smart and had waterproof boots so his feet stayed dry.
My good Scoutmaster husband attempted to start a fire with flint & steel (just for the sake of teaching me) and within a minute the toilet paper we were trying to catch of fire was wet from the ground so after what seemed like 10 minutes of hearing the kids complain and watch no action in the fire area I insisted we use a match. (Wimpy I know) Do you know how to start a fire? We are going to learn very soon!!
Soon after our fire was going, it started to rain. So as great as our attempts to dry out by the fire were, we had to find shelter. Thankfully Dustin was able to move the fire over to a place where the trees were sheltering us from the rain and we could start to warm up and dry out and cook some hot dogs.
Dustin made us a couple of clothes lines to dry our stuff over the fire.
When we got to the lake Dustin left to go fishing while the girls and I "played house". Ella wrung out the socks and gloves and changed their position on the clothes line. We cleaned up and cooked everybody some hot dogs. Thankfully the girls and I got warmed up and our pants dried a bit by the fire and they got happy again.
On the way back I was carrying Alissa down on my shoulders and as I was trudging through the snow I twisted my ankle and fell to my knees. Thankfully I was able to walk the rest of the way down still carrying her. My ankle started to hurt and get stiff and swollen when I stopped walking.
I only wanted to share these experience so I can tell you a few of the
lessons I learned for our 72 hour kits:
*Do we know enough first aid to help somebody or even ourselves with an injury? What if I was unable to walk on my ankle?
*Dry feet are important. Alissa wouldn't even walk once her feet got wet and so we had to carry the 2 little girls 95% of the time. I would throw in some extra baggies and definitely some socks and shoes. It made it quite a bit harder to pack those 30 pound babies all the way.
*Warm hands are important. I brought some chemical hand warmers and they saved the day. The girls just clasped those things in their hands and held tight. We stuffed them in their pant pockets to be up against their body to keep them warm. Make sure you have some gloves and adults need work gloves for handling wood, fire, whatever else you might need to do.
*I was so glad Dustin had rope to make some clothes lines. Make sure somebody in your family has rope.
*PONCHOS are essential! As soon as it starts to rain you get that thing on you and over your pack. If the things in your bag get wet, you are in trouble. I am going to throw in an extra 1 or 2 in mine just in case somebody needs a spare. They are such thin plastic and a few ripped. If we are using them for 3 days somebody in our family may need a spare. We also used them to sit on since there was no dry place to sit.
*Just for extra protection, I would put your things like toilet paper, clothing, dry foods, etc. in individual bags just to keep them dry should your pack get wet. Ella's water bottle leaked and on top of the rain water got everything so wet.
*Less food preparation is better. If we had to wait on something to cook much longer than the hot dogs, the kids may have had a melt down.
Overall, my kids had such a fun time and we made some great memories! They were only sad for a few minutes while they tried to get warm. I am so grateful for this opportunity we had to build memories and to let our kids prove they are strong and can do hard things. I was so grateful again to be reflecting on our pioneer ancestors and all they endured. We need to have that faith, we can endure. We MUST prepare!
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