I am 31 and rediscovering why I loved heading off for escapes in the woods with friend in my high school years. So many great memories of backpacking in West Virginia as a Fairfax, VA high school student the summer of '95 has driven me to rekindle the love of the endevour now that I can see my children (ages 5 and 3) old enough to go on short trips.

We hiked down to Spruce Creek just below State College, PA and weathered 4.5 inches of rain on our first and only outing so far. Everyone was smiling by the end of it too. We had fun.

I am wanting to find a local group from Central Pennsylvania to spur me on and get ideas from about local options here. Any one have advice? Thank!

Googling "Hiking Clubs Pennsylvania" brought up several lists, online references and a number of guidebooks to trails. Google is your friend! If you're in the State College area, check at Penn State, too. Try googling "Hikes with children Pennsylvania" for more ideas. Finally, if you go to the "Hiking with Kids" section on this forum, you'll find an excellent article by Penny S--it's the first post in that section. Reading through the other posts in that section will give you more ideas.

Most important, you're getting the kids out there! Good for you!

Yep, try the Internet. Look at Yahoo Groups, you might find something there. Try to find a local Sierra Club chapter, they might have family style trips. Also, check your local outfitter or gear shop. They might have a bulletin board or something along those lines.

YMCA/YWCA or local colleges might be other sources.

Also, post something in the Trips forum, you may find some local folks who post here.

Thanks. I appreciate the help!

Also check out meetup.com. At least in my area, there are three groups that are close enough to be relevant and all of them have hikes about every other weekend or so.

You might consider volunteering to be an assistant Scoutmaster for an actively-outdoors troop, or a backpacking merit badge counselor for the local Scout Council. You'll not only recapture some of your youthful enthusiasm through their eyes, but you're likely to make some hiking friends among the other leaders. I know it worked for me, even though all the Scouts are grown and gone. I still occasionally get together with some of the leaders for easy weekend backpacks.

Ill second meetup.com. Also if you have a college or University near you can you check with their sports department. I just found out that our local University has a group that goes hiking and backpacking.

A 'me too' post for meetup.com. I co-manage a meetup group here and it's been a great way to find people to backpack with. Met some of my best friends through it.