Why do you backpack..what turned you on to the wild? This isnt WHY you love the outdoor but how were you introduced to them; and why it stuck with you. As I grow up and have kids of my own I want to pass my love of the outdoors on to them. Was it passed onto you or did you find it on your own? I will share my experience when i have a few minutes to type here in a few days

As a kid, I was raised in the midwest and the south in some pretty dull country. My folks took me fishing and I read a lot about Crockett, Boone, and Carson, etc. growing up.

But what really got me going was getting off the train in Tucson, transferring to the U of Arizona as a sophomore, and seeing the Santa Catalina Mountains in early morning light. I found the UofA hiking club, and things progressed. Among other things, a good friend and mentor there, suggested a summer job in the NPS, which led to a career.

Grew up in West Virginia, my dad liked being outdoors, my buddies liked being out in the woods, and there was the Boy Scouts. Lived in a small town of a few hundred people, there was not a lot to do other than camp outs.

My mom grew up in a family that camped and day hiked with a local hiking club back in the 1930s. She in turn saw to it that our family camped and hiked when I was young.

I was the first in our family to backpack, in 1970, back when innovative new equipment like aluminum frame packs and synthetic fabrics made backpacking more accessible. That helped to trigger a wave of backpacking enthusiasm among young baby boomers. Because I'd camped and hiked all my young life, the transition to backpacking was natural. Unlike most of my peers, I never stopped.

My brother, dad, grandfather and myself did a few fishing trips for part of the day while growing up. Nothing after that. I started bping because I heard of all the good fishing when I was in community college. That is the case part of the time, I have stuck it out as I can see new country everyday bping, and only have the cost of gas getting there and back, versus the expense and noise of a campground or motel and eating out. Not as much fun the last few years without a dog.

I always was an outdoorsy little kid. My family went on camping trips in the 1950's-60's because at that time it was all we could afford. Campgrounds were free! I started as a climber-mountaineer when I was 16 years old and climbed with the Spokane Mountaineers. First peak and I was hooked. Backpacking was simply a way to get to a mountain. During college years and following five years I taught climbing at NOLS. With kids, I did more simple backpacking. Kids grew up and I got back into climbing. A few years ago the backpacking increased, tecnhical climbing decreased. Several people I knew were killed climbing- kind of put a black cloud over that activity for me.

I can solo backpack and also do not have to carry the heavy climbing gear- a godsend in old age. I still am not fond of trails, prefer high altitudes in the alpine environment and off-trail and spend most of my time exploring.

Dad! From the time I was little he always took all us kids hiking in the woods, and along the creeks. When real little he often carried us on his shoulders! Dad worked for NIU Dept of Biology. He new most all plants trees and Anphibians and Reptiles, Most bye there Latin name as well! I took two backpacking trips in the Smokies with him after his divorce from Ma when I was in High School. I had my first child at age 18 and never backpacked again till he was 25. I took it back up for some closure on the loss of my Dad a couple years ago.
I am hooked and so is my oldest son now age 28. I took him backpacking in the Smokies this spring! I have tried to get my 21 year old son and age 15 daughter interested for a couple years now. Some kids just are not interested. This modern age of Video electronics, corrupts imagination and breads lazyness!
Kids dont want to be out doors on a hot summer day, when they can sit in the air conditioning and play Video Games. I wish you luck!

I grew up in the woods pretty much. We lived on a 100 acre dairy and my grandparents own a 3,000 acre cattle ranch. I was hunting by 12, and logging with my family by 16. I've spent every weekday for many summers living and working out there at our cabin. In high school, I started getting into backpacking, which no one in my family was really into. I live in a small, rural area in Northern California, so a lot of our recreation takes place out in the woods.

My Dad was an Eagle Scout and took me camping all the time. When I was 11 and a scout, we went backpacking in Yosemite. From then on, I was hooked.

My first few years I lived in a neighborhood where everyone had big back yards. I started by exploring it. There was a City park with big forested areas down a few houses from us, and a golf course across the street. From the time my mom let me walk down the street to play with neighbor kids we all headed straight to the forest and didn't come out until we heard our parents call. In the winter we'd roam the golf course.

By the time I was six I was sleeping on the porch in the Summer. By 8 or 9, I was rigging old sheets and blankets into tents in my backyard. Around that time I lived in the heart of the city and there was a group of us kids that would ride our bikes (Stingrays) to the parks and hike around in the forested areas.

Did my first real night camping out when I was around 12. It was windy, cold, and raining and we were in an old canvas tent that leaked, but I loved it. Did my first backcountry trip when I was 14. Spent 18 days in Sequoia NF. By the time I was 17 I was driving up there myself from LA and exploring wherever the logging roads would take me. I'd mostly car camp and bushwhack around on day hikes back then. I started backpacking more when I hit about 36. That was 17 years ago.

To be honest, I can't remember ever not wanting to hike in the forests, or anyone else in my family ever wanting to. Drove my mom a little nuts in those early years with that

You know as a kid the best part of being in the wild was...

getting away from my parents.

Seriously.

Exactly Heather!

I really did drive my mother a bit nuts, but it wasn't intentional. I was just being me

When I was 14 I skipped two days of school because they were the first sunny days we'd had all darn year. It was the beginning of June. I walked to a Forest Preserve about 5 miles from home, instead of school, and spent the days bushwhacking around in it.

When my mom found out I'd skipped she blew a gasket. She thought for sure I was hanging out with dunderheads smoking pot, "and who knows what else", and when I told her I'd spent those days in the forest by myself she just couldn't buy it. Two weeks later I was living with my dad 2200 miles away in Hollywood, CA. I hadn't seen him in several years, and Hollywood was a pretty severe culture shock, but a month after getting there I was camping in the middle of the Sequoia NF. That was literally a dream come true.

As a kid, I never did go back and live with my mom, but when I was in my late 20s I did go back and live in Rockford, IL, where I grew up, to spend some time with her and family again. She finally realized that I really did go wondering around in the forests and she even baby sat my daughter so I could back then, but she still probably never understood why

Some people get nervous in the wilderness. I am never more relaxed than when I'm out there. After all these years it's still very hard for me to go back in the house, especially after a few days out.

BTW, My grandson has been begging me to take him camping again. He's four now. Hopefully, he'll think of me when he answers this question in a few years

My dad was a summer ranger when I was a kid...and when he wasn't working, we were camping most summers anyway. First trip was with my older sister and one of her friends...up to Paradise Valley in SEKI...I must have been 11 or 12, and she would have been about 16.

Thanks for all the response!
Now for mine

My parents took me car camping from the time I was infant all over Minnesota where I was born. After moving to Rockford IL, we would always take "vacations" out West or up North while my friends went to Disney Land and such. My dad always told me stories of backpacking in Montana and Wyoming for up to 4 weeks at a time! I always dreamed of it but we never went until I was 15 or 16 (Beartooth Mountains). In Winnebago Country (Rockford and neighboring towns) there are 36 forest preserves spanning about 10,000 acres of forest, streams, trails, lakes, etc...while none of them are spectacular in comparison to the rest of the US, they kept my friends and I busy fishing, hiking and exploring. Furthermore, my uncle ran the food service program at a camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and we often stayed there for periods of time when I was young and found glory in its extreme secluded wilderness.

On a side note, while researching outdoor education for a college class, I came across several collegiate journal articles and research showing how being outdoors around nature increased attention spans of ADD/ADHD students, as well as provided them with a calming effect for the hyperactivity associated with ADHD; so personally I found it rather interesting being as I am extremely ADHD and when I am in/around nature it is the only time I feel truly calm/still.

I just graduated from NIU on Saturday! As for video games, I played tons growing up, but also got outside ALOT. I think nowadays (Iam 28) it is very different though, also I did not get a video game system till I was maybe 13 or 14 and already had a love for the out of outdoors.

This saturday will be my first time backpacking. I guess it was my friends that talked me into it, didnt take much convincing. The only difficult part is giving up skydiving for a little while to make this happen

jwild,

You bring back memories.

During WWII, we lived in Elgin. A few times, mom took me on the bus to the forest preserve there. (couldn't go many places; remember gas rationing?). I got to wear my aunt's high, laceup boots (very uncomfortable, but I was very proud in them). I loved it and bugged her to go often.

As soon as the war was over and dad was released from the industrial draft (worked at several war production plants in the Fox River valley), we moved to a farm in the Ozark Mountains of North Arkansas.

Within days I was exploring and discovered that it was like the forest preserve, but mom would let me go alone (with my dog and 22/410 of course). There were days when dad did not have any work for me, and mom made me a sandwich, and I wandered. Good thing mom never found out how far I actually went. I was hooked.

To this day, I am actually a bit more comfortable/at home in the woods than out. People who don't share that find it strange and hard to understand. You obviously do, though I am sorry about the reason.

Best, jcp

My parents were attracted to the outdoors when National Geographic (I think in 1941) published a story about a couple and their child (a year older than me) taking a 3-months' backpack in Alaska.

This inspired my parents to plan a backpack in the "Black Forest" of Pennsylvania. I was 6 and that was my first backpacking trip. I thrived! I remember only bits and pieces now.

Three years later, my parents decided to quit their jobs, sell the house and head out west to Jackson, Wyoming. I vividly remember our first day at the Jenny Lake Campground (we were the only ones there because World War II was still on) and how magical were the towering peaks, the wildflowers and the wind blowing through the pines. We sold the car (which barely made it out there), bought 5 horses and headed for New Mexico where we were going to spend the winter. The Pennsylvania backpack was our only outdoors experience, and our knowledge of horses came from two months of lessons at a local riding stable. Despite numerous adventures, we miraculously (!) avoided disaster, made it through the Gros Ventre and Wind River ranges and got as far as the Uintas in northeastern Utah before accepting an invitation to stay at an isolated cow camp near what is now the Flaming Gorge Dam. (The owner's's son was discovered on his draft physical to have diabetes, and his parents were worried about his staying alone there.) To make a long story short, we ended up in Laramie, Wyoming, where I grew up and went to college. Every summer we spent 6-7 weeks with the horses along the summit ridges of the mountains of northern Colorado.

With a background like that, it was love the wilderness or hate it, and I loved it! I still do!

Wow, lots of Illinois, Elgin, Rockford and Northern Illinois University references surprisingly; Very cool stuff, I enjoy reading all the stories!

I was born in southern California to parents who liked to camp and fish. They started taking me along in 1941 and did so until my father was drafted in early 1943. After the war, they resumed camping and fishing and added backpacking in the Sierra to their activities. I loved all of it; I also loved reading about the north woods, Alaska, explorers and distant mountains.

When I joined the Boy Scouts in the late 40's, the scoutmaster had been a member of the 10th Mountain Division. He had trained in Colorado and fought in Italy. He was an enthusiastic climber and conveyed his enthusiasm to several of his troop; including me. He taught rock climbing to about six of us in climbing areas around Los Angeles (eg. Joshua Tree, Tahquitz rock). I moved to the Seattle area in 1952 and joined the Seattle Mountaineers. I went through their climbing school learning ice and snow techniques.

I have been hiking and climbing ever since with a few career-related gaps. I was never a particularly distinguished climber but I was certainly enthusiastic; I have slowed down a bit in the last ten years. I take pride in having climbed the highest mountain in Nebraska: in my pickup truck!

I have cycled past the highest point in Nebraska, which is surprisingly interesting country. Did you ever visit Fort Robinson or Agate Fossil Beds NM?

OM- what adventuresome parents you had! You are so lucky. You should write a book about that experience. You stuck with backpacking and still love the wilderness- are you still keen on horses? I will hire packers to haul my stuff in, but have no desire to have my own horses.

I love horses, but I certainly don't want to own any. Too expensive, for starters. For another, while horsepacking sounds easy (you get to ride instead of walk, although riding uses a lot of muscles you didn't know you had), it's a lot like backpacking with 3-year-old kids--that weigh half a ton or more apiece. I remember a number of times when the horses took off, for no particular reason a human could discover, and I had to hike up to 5-6 miles to retrieve them before we could go anywhere! Backpacking is far simpler!

My parents did write a book but were not able to sell it. They did accumulate quite a collection of printed rejection slips!

Rockford, and Winnebago County do still have some very nice parks and forest preserves, but it's not the same as when I grew up there. Friends and I romped through all those parks every chance we got. We lived near Kishwaukee St. and 5th Ave, (practically downtown) and rode our bikes to Atwood, Sinissippi, Page, Alpine, Rock Cut, and most all the rest of them.

As a kid, I almost cried when I heard the City would be tearing up Sinissippi Park to create the new Park District offices there.

At that time I was around 10 or 12 years old and I actually called the Park District to complain about it. They told me it was going to be "Beautiful". I told them they were ripping up the best part of the entire park, and asked why, if they needed more office space, they didn't just move into the old "Social Security" building downtown that was vacant.

When I was eight years old I had walked into that SS building and told them my name and they gave me a Social Security Card, no other questions asked, no big form to fill out, no birth certificate, no parents present. I was amazed at how beautiful that building was. A few years later is was empty and sat that way for many more. I walked and rode by bike by it often and wondered why.

Of course the Park District leaders didn't pay any attention to that suggestion. They had taxpayer money to spend and were determined to do it. Instead, they cut down hundreds of huge old growth hardwood trees and ground the hillside down to flat to build it all. I rode my bike there over the course of months to watch them do it. It was heart breaking. I truly loved that piece of forest.

25 years later I was working on a project with the Rockford Park District and the head of the department proudly told me that they were moving their offices into the "Historic Social Security Building Downtown". The same one I had recommended as a kid. Honestly, I was stunned when she told me that. We were standing outside in the parking lot of the very building I had begged them not to build. It was enraging for me to hear that, and yet amazing at the same time. All I could say in response was, "You probably should have done that a long time ago."

That "Beautiful" building they had torn up the park for was, by then, dilapidated, way over crowded, and even uglier than when it was when new. The big paved parking lot was warped, cracked, and even uglier still.

I don't know what they do with that building in the Sinissippi Park now, they should have torn it down, but every time I drove by it in the early `90's I cringed at it and the view of the bright orange "Symbol" the City placed across the road near the Sinissippi ponds and gardens. That "Symbol" was truly symbolic for me. To me, it was every bit as ugly as the "Progress" they made in managing the City and those wonderful parks over the decades since I was born.

Rockford was once a beautiful and thriving city, most all the streets were lined with trees that formed a green archway over them. Back then it was truly the "Forest City".

By the time I left in 1973 it was consistently rated the worst of the United States' largest 300 cities to live in. It hasn't done much better since. The trees, the factories where people made a decent living, and the integrity of their elected officials, all died in the 60's and 70's. What was left in it's place was the battered and scarred corpse of a once beautiful place to live. It was as if grim reapers played a cheap trick on those that lived there. (that line is for all the locals and some friends we call the "Hometown Boys")

It took decades for me to convince my family to move from there, but in the end most of them did. In fact, all but one sister eventually followed me here, to the Ozarks, and everyone of them, including my mother, one of my stepmothers, my stepfather, and my grandmother, all said after leaving Rockford that they were never happier in their entire lives.

I don't go back to Rockford anymore. Probably never will.

Yeah Bill, it has gotten much worse since the 90's! I cant even begin to describe how many abandoned factories and building litter Rockford. It still gets ranked consistently as the worst of the United States' largest 300 cities to live in, but with that said, a few years back I was looking at the break down of how they do the rankings and the "parks and recreation" category we were in the top 10 due to the extreme amount of golf courses and the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District.
By chance do you remember the Home Shoe Company/Children Shoe Center on Broadway and 8th Also I belive the Broadway Shoe Store on Broadway and 7th st.. My late grandfather John Skoglund owned those stores.
Currently, all of my family made it out of Rockford, I just graduated college, and the house my Grandfather built is up for sale; my father is finishing his year teaching at Lincoln Middle School (he also attended Lincoln) before he heads out. I am guessing you probably went to Lincoln Middle School as well if you lived near Kishwaukee?

Your father teaches at Lincoln? That's just too cool!

Of course I went to Lincoln Middle School, still have my yearbook from 8th grade there in 1973 too. I dust it off every now and then and reminisce

I also went to Kishwaukee from 1st-5th grades. Honestly, I still think those old schools are just awesome buildings.

I am positive we bought shoes from your Grandfather too. Shoot, my mom probably hauled me down there every year when I was little. We'd eat lunch at Maid Rite and poke around the Ben Franklin 5-10¢ store on the way home.

Rockford's public golf courses are some of the finest I've seen anywhere. Those first few years I mentioned I lived across the street from Ingersol Golf course, way out on the west side, on "Daisy field Rd", in a little pink house, no less

Wow OM! That's a pretty cool childhood experience.

I got put onto the outdoors by my father. I would get taken around
the outdoors up here on camping trips, fishing trips, forestry spring camps, hunting trips, etc. But certainly nothing as adventureous as OM!



(I'm the one on the right with the glasses)

OM that is quite the story. You're parents were certainly courageous and way ahead of the curve as far as I'm concerned.

I asked my mom and stepdad many times over the years why we lived in Rockford and why we didn't move someplace nicer, (and warmer in the winter). The stock response for them, and most other adults I knew at the time there was, "We have jobs, and house payments, and family, you kids are in school, we can't just pack up and leave everything."

I just couldn't buy into that, but couldn't convince them otherwise either. Even as a youngster I knew it was fear that kept them where they were. For me, the fear of being stuck someplace I didn't like became much greater.

When I was in high school, for about two years, we lived in Urbana. What struck me was how people there talked regularly about retiring and moving then to either Florida, California, or Arizona. Right then I thought, why not go there before retirement, while I am young, mobile, and have not yet put down roots?