Hiking with Preschoolers

It's the absolute best time of year. Even though January came with some crazy hot day curve balls, the cool weather and bright sunshine is perfect for enjoying the amazing wilderness, (literally in our backyard) which at this time of year is green and verdant with flowers and wildlife. I've always enjoyed trail hiking as both a meditative and physical exercise. Initially, I was put off by the halting snail pace that my toddlers made me endure. But fortunately, I soon stopped waiting for my kids to be able to keep up with me and started enjoying the trails at their pace and discovered a whole new wonderous world. Hiking, besides the obvious benefits of fresh air, physical activity, and quality family time, gives the children opportunities to practice patience, self discipline and the delicate and almost forgotten art of self entertainment. It takes patience to navigate a path that you've never been on before, not knowing when you'll get to the end or having to wait your turn to be leader of the trail. It takes self discipline to keep going even though you really want mommy or daddy to carry you. We practice goal setting-("Make it to that next tree then I'll carry you.") and delaying gratification. All these skills carry over into our everyday lives away from the trails and help us see every task in life as an adventure. But the greatest joy for me has been providing my boys with an escape from the modern world- even if its only for 30 min. There are few areas in the world we can practice having fun while being unplugged. Wifi was one of Finn's first sight words and he was quick to enthusiastically let us know which restaurant ,coffee shop or grocery store had it. Even though you can access the internet on the trails in Irvine/Laguna, and we often take advantage of GPS mapping (runkeeper is a great app for that), we make it a point to be otherwise unplugged. We set the purpose of enjoying God's creation and each other. This gives them the chance to rely on their own powers of observation, the chance to enjoy their environment through all their senses, and to find ways to connect to the world on their terms. Not even monkey bars and slides for entertainment out there- its all it all comes from you. What can you discover? At first you may need to model and point these things out to them to keep your child occupied on the trail. There's the obvious observations you can make about plant and wildlife; we learn the names of plants (monkey bush and CA everlasting are easy flowers to identify) and animals; we look at the tracks; we look at the scat; we find funny faces in the rocks. BTW, sage and licorice and great sensory plants to both touch and feel, even as an adult I can't help petting them as I walk by. We have also found it a great adventure to identify the letters on the posts that outline the path. Do you know what happens after you get to the letter Z? You can find out on the Dilley trail. Drive down Laguna Canyon Road (133) and there are 4 or 5 parks with hundreds of trails the whole family can enjoy. We recently celebrated completing a 2+mile loop, about an 1.5hour hike. I never thought my 6 and 4 year old would be able to do that, but after 2 years of just getting out there we slowly and deliberately built up to it. So where to start? Small loops with a nature center are the best. We loved Mary's trail at Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. And while you're there sign up for their newletter and grab a calendar. They have fun tot walks with a ranger as a guide every month. Irvine Regional has 2 small loops and then you can stay and enjoy the train (Feb 22-23 are $2 rides) or the amazing zoo. Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary has an amazing nature center and small hike, worth the drive. When you are ready for a straight hike, I recommend Laurel Canyon Trail; we call it Tunnelly hike. There are fun natural markers that you can steadily work your way up to reaching: The caves,(500ft in) the fault line,(1/4m) the giant tree (1/2m), minecraft monster rock(3/4m) and recently we discovered fossils (1m)- just don't forget you have to walk back. You need nothing more than water, snack and a hat. Get an annual pass, you can use it everywhere from Mason Park to Crystal Cove to Aliso and Wood Canyons. ocparks.com is a good resource too, but don't spend too much time overthinking it. Just get out there! See you on the trails;)