Ashlyn's First Backpacking Trip

This past weekend we did something most people would call crazy:  we took a 3.5month old backpacking.

And we thought
it was awesome!
(except the part where she decided to get congested the second night and was up screaming because she couldn't breathe, or the part where we all came home with colds, but, whatever).  

It was awesome.  She loved it.

I got the idea to take a baby backpacking from the Hungry Runner Girl blog, she took her daughter at about 7months and wore her in a front pack.  Tim had been all sad we would not get to go backpacking together this summer (due to breastfeeding...or last summer due to me being pregnant).  I showed him the blog post on backpacking with a baby, and he started to plan.

For Christmas I had gotten him a subscription of Backpacker magazine (which he loves) and so he started finding different trips we could take.  They were short and did not have much elevation gain.  After our 9mile hike in Tahoe, the potential length of the trip became a little longer knowing Ashlyn could handle it and we could carry her.

The trip Tim ended up choosing was to Chain Lakes in Yosemite National Park (starting in the Sierra National Forest...out a 15mile long dirt road.  Ha).  It was a 5 mile hike in to the middle lake, where we would spend two nights, and the second day we would do a day hike up to the upper lake.  The trail started at about 8,000ft in elevation and the middle lake was at 9,200ft*.



Thursday night we drove from home to Daniel and Maria's so we could start early Friday morning, which didn't happen because James and Bekah are just so fun!  I love watching them play with Ashlyn!

Maria got out their play gym for Ashlyn...she loves it!

We ended up leaving around 11am, and after getting our wilderness permit in Oakhurst, we drove out Road 632 to the Quartz Mountain trailhead.  Did I mention 15 miles of it was dirt road???  It took FOREVER!!!  So we started hiking around 2:30ish.

Most of the drive on the dirt road I sat Ashlyn on my lap!

About a mile in, we entered into Yosemite National Park.  Ashlyn's first visit!!!

We stopped and had a snack on the way and fed and changed Ashlyn (and started carrying our very first wet diaper of many we would carry).

About halfway through, Tim started carrying Ashlyn so we could go quicker and get a campsite set up before dark.  I had said I would carry Ashlyn the whole way (and had a lighter pack because of it), but she was just hanging too low in front of me, so every time I had to step up I had to swing my leg around her leg to get it out of the way, making me very slow.

We passed a bunch of people resting at the outlet of the lower lake, so we were excited to get a good campsite, but the "quota" that the ranger told us was full for the trailhead must have been about 30 people, because there were people camping everywhere (forget the 100ft from the trail and water rule, there was just no space)!  Three gentlemen let us have a campsite with a little more space because we have a baby, which was really nice.

The lower lake

We set up the tent, rinsed our feet off in the lake, and Tim fixed dinner.  During dinner, Ashlyn lay in the tent and played with her crinkley monkey which I had brought hanging on my pack.  She loved it, and it was perfect so she had somewhere to play while we ate both nights!

Fajitas for dinner paleo-style!

All cozy in the tent

After we cleaned up dinner it was pretty much dark, and since we hadn't brought books, we all three went to sleep in the tent.  Tim and I both have the nice REI sleeping mats, but we decided that Ashlyn would just sleep between us on top of my North Face fleece.  Tim also found her some fleece camo zippy jammies (for backpacking and Shaver Lake camping) and she slept in a fleece sleep sack too (hand-me-down in dinosaurs).  We were worried about her being cold but the first night there was absolutely no reason to worry, it was HOT!!!  Tim and I both had trouble sleeping and in the middle of the night we opened both of the vestibules to try to get a cross-breeze.  In the morning after Ashlyn's first meal, Tim went out in the hammock and it must have cooled off because we were all able to take a nap.

Our morning view from our campsite

Hammy time!

Then I had oatmeal and Tim had couscous for breakfast and we went to go see the lake.  Apparently its a good fishing spot, but a hiker we talked to said they hadn't seen any fish so it was probably cleaned out for the season.

Then we packed up to go day hike up to the upper lake (we had talked about trying to go up to Breeze Lake pictured on the map, but the GPS stayed on all night so it was dead).  Tim had felt so hot carrying Ashlyn on his stomach the day before, that he rigged up her Kelty pack (that we had already rigged up with caribeaners to attach to the front of a pack instead of wearing the straps) to attach to the back of the pack.  We got this look:

Adventure girl!

We hiked up to the upper lake, which seemed like it had been bigger earlier in the season or sometime before, and it looked kind of mushy.  We went out on the rocks between the middle and upper lake to have lunch (granola bars, Tiger's milk bars, almonds, salami, Sour Patch Kids, and Trolli gummy worms).

I pass out on packs.  And stay passed out on packs.
Even on the ground.

View of the middle lake from our lunch spot

Then Tim decided instead of taking the trail back we should just hike down to the inlet of the middle lake because apparently Every Trail said it was a good swimming hole (once again, maybe when the lake level was higher).

We continued to walk around the lake and found a jumping rock!  We didn't want to wake Ashlyn or take her out of the pack, so we kept switching it back and forth.  It was HUGE on me...to get it onto Tim I would push press it over my head so it was level with his shoulders so he could put it on.  Haha.

We came back to our campsite and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in our hammocks and trying to nap, wishing we had brought books.  We actually got a little bit bored at times.

I pass out on packs.  And stay passed out on packs.
Even hanging on a tree.

We hiked up to the ridge behind our campsite that over looked the lower lake and had a great view, to check it out for the potential of watching the sunset.  Money.

So we went down and had an early dinner (freeze-dried Lasagna with meat sauce, trust us, its one of the best ones), and then bundled Ashlyn up in her jammies and went up on the ridge to watch the sunset.

And took some photos.

We realized the clouds were too low to get the sun right over the mountains, so we came down while it was still light and put Ashlyn to bed while we sat in our hammocks and ate some super-amazing Trader Joe's dark chocolate 70% cocao caramel with black sea salt.  Oh my goodness.  Might be our new spoil ourselves treat.

Then I climbed in the tent with Ashlyn and Tim tried to go get some moonpath pictures on the lake, but he needed the DSLR to take shots longer than 15 seconds. :(

At 11pm we woke up to Ashlyn SCREAMING!  She wouldn't calm down, her diaper was dry, and she didn't want to eat.  So because there were so many people around, Tim hiked with her up on top of the ridge and I tried to fall asleep.   When Tim brought her back calmed down, he told me she was really congested, so after she ate a little (and wouldn't fall asleep), I held her up on my shoulder, and then in front of me on my knees, and eventually transitioned her to her sleep sack next to me.

Only to be awoken around 3am to her screaming again.  SO this time Tim took his sleeping bag and sleeping mat up on top of the ridge with her.  I tried to sleep, and at 5:30am I got up and started packing up.  I planned to bring the bear canister and stove up to Tim to make him breakfast and make something good out of a bad situation, but just as I was heading up he was coming down.  And Ashlyn was happy.

Ashlyn hung out in the hammock as we packed up everything, and we think we were able to leave around 8am.  It was much nicer hiking downhill than uphill, and because of the hour of the day it was also cooler (and there was some cloud-cover).  We were trying to not stop to feed her, but she needed to eat and have a new diaper about a mile from the car.

When we got back to the car, we baby-wiped off our feet, took a few "I survived" pictures at the trailhead, and headed down the dirt road (this time starting the Trip odometer so we knew how far we had gone).

"I survived..."

We stopped for In-N-Out in Fresno, and then went to Daniel and Maria's for showers (and Ashlyn some cousin time).  The best brother-in-law in the world decided he should wash AND wax our car... AWESOME!  (Maybe only a little sad we didn't get a picture of how dirty it actually was)!  We enjoyed a yummy Papa Murphy's pizza dinner (and pudding) with Daniel, Maria, James, and Bekah before driving home in the dark so Ashlyn would sleep.

Batman and BatGirl playing with Ashlyn

And we all go colds.


*Yes, some people were concerned we were taking Ashlyn this high up in elevation.  We were not concerned because of how well she did at Tahoe the month before, and the fact that we do not have her on any kind of feeding schedule, so she would let us know when she was thirsty as well as hungry.  We also talked to two different park rangers who told us they had taken babies up to this elevation and had no problems.  She was fine.