A Father’s Day weekend trip with my buddy Josh and his two sons.
For the past two years, my buddy Josh and I have taken his son Avery out on a backpacking trip for Father’s Day weekend.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am very close to this family. The children refer to me as “Uncle Mags” and, I’d like to think, spoil them accordingly. 🙂
This year, the youngest boy Elijah would be joining us. At five years old, he is already an experienced camper. He recently hiked Sanitas with a very small day pack in anticipation of this trip.
We left Friday night and made our way to the Lost Park TH just outside of Jefferson. A quick campsite was made off the FS road for the evening. The boys were rather enamored with all the shell casings in the area. Their mother would not be as enamored on Sunday when she found about…..
On Saturday, we began our trip. I was a bit surprised at the amount of cars at the TH vs a few years ago. High snow year perhaps? For once, I don’t think my website caused the issue. 😉
We made our way down the trail. Josh had an old school Kelty to lug all the extra gear. I helped played porter as well using my ULA Catalyst.
At our break spot at the top of our climb for the day, we broke some of the treats I carried in. For the trip, I packed in cold cokes, the makings for snow ice cream, lemon slushies and, to the Zapin boys, Uncle Mags’ legendary supply of Snickers!
We continued down the trail from the day’s high point and reached Lost Park. The trail meandered along the meadow and in and out of the woods.
Camp was made for the evening with a good view towards the meadow.
The night was cool bordering on cold, but a campfire took the chill out of the night air.
The following day we made our climb up to the plateau below Bison Peak. We had no intention of reaching the peak itself, just wanted to pop above treeline.
Josh and I took all the extra gear and let the boys hike sans packs.
We did not quite make it to above treeline. The wind was picking up a tad too much for Elijah and I think the little guy was tired.
I did promise lemon slushies and backcountry ice cream, however!
So off I went with a one gallon pot, ran/power hiked to above treeline, quickly admired the awesome views and grabbed some snow.
Ran back down.
Mission accomplished.
A little lemon powder, some snow and water makes a great, and now traditional, backcountry treat.
But the game was upped a bit with the introduction of snow ice cream: Some snow, condensed milk, some vanilla and chocolate chips.
The boys liked both treats quite a bit.
We headed back down the trail, grabbed the rest of the gear and hiked out.
The car was reached. Comfy clothes changed into. And one last burst of sugar enjoyed before heading home.
A great little trip and a pleasure, as always, to help introduce the boys to the joys of backpacking.
Deets
- Pretty much the same trip Josh and I did three years ago. (Minus the climb to Bison) Alas, Traveler has passed on. I knew this chocolate lab well. Josh and I even hauled him up a small cliff one canyoneering expedition ~10 yrs ago!
- For a kitschy, but child pleasing experience, stop at Coney Island hotdogs in Bailey. Not the best food. But what child does not love ordering out of a giant hot dog! 🙂
photo from Wikipedia