This is my first post. I apologize if this gets a little long. We are planning a trip to the Smokies as a family and I wanted to get opinions on our plan from some more experienced people.

There will be 7 of us going: Myself, my fiance, my ex-husband (we're all on good terms), my son age 15, and 2 daughters ages 12 and 5. We are all in good health and very active. This will be my first time out and also the first for the girls.

We are planning to go in September (6th-8th). Since this is a first time out for the younger ones we thought we would park near Tremont and hike the West Prong Trail to site 18 where we will make camp for both nights. On Saturday we'll get up early and spend the day exploring the trails that branch off near camp and then return to 18 for the night. Sunday is packing up and hiking back to the truck.

Since the girls have never been camping and we have no idea of how much hiking they can do we thought this trip would give them a chance to get their feet wet and we can get an idea of how to go about planning longer trips.

We are packing fairly light with the adults carrying the majority of the load. The kids will have day packs and I thought I would fix up a little backpack for the youngest so that she can be like everybody else.

Does anybody have any advice for making this a great trip? I really want them to enjoy it. We'd love to be able to do some good backpacking trips with the kids as a family.