Backtracking to Backpacking

My husband, Theo, is Mr. Endurance. Seriously, he is almost freakishly superhuman when it comes to any physical task. He also has a great love of the outdoors. One of his favorite things to do is explore backcountry trails. Since we have been in Arizona for a good long time, he knows tons of cool places to hike and camp.

Another one of the things that Theo loves is spending time with his boys. I say "his boys" because they are so very HIS. In actuality, I am in the process of raising 5 kids, not 4. Theo is the FUN dad always up for a game, and adventure, or maybe even some mischief.

When our oldest son turned 12 two summers ago, Theo decided that he wanted to start a tradition of taking them on a backpacking trip. What could be more fun than that for a 12 year old boy?! This year, our second son, Corbin, is turning 12, and of course has been anticipating his trip. They talked about lots of possible destinations. Drake, our oldest, did the Grand Canyon. They thought maybe they could do that again, or maybe Zion, or Bryce, or part of the Arizona Trail, or some other really awesome place.

Then Theo and I decided to jump the rails and go in a whole new life direction. We had decided on this whole back to school thing, and lots of things were turned upside down. You see, Theo had to start his DPT program at the end of May. Corbin's birthday is in July, and our family was going to be separated for the summer. What to do?

It is hard to call something a tradition if you only do it once, and besides, our kids are scorekeepers. I don't know if yours are like this, but if one of them gets some kind of perk or privilege, the rest want their fair share! And so the backpacking trip was put on the fast track. School let out a week before Memorial Day, and a few days later, Theo and Corbin were off on their coming of age adventure.

They decided a two day trip to Rainbow Bridge was just the ticket! They packed their gear and made the almost two hour drive to the base of Navajo Mountain.

Father and son

Ready to go

"Icing" the legs after a tough day

Little frogs everywhere in the canyon pools

Yes, that is a huge knife he is holding.

Feeling good!

Altogether, they hiked 34 miles round-trip. Theo said that Corbin really struggled the first day and was worried that he wouldn't make it out. But then, on the second day he came back strong and hiked like a champ, or maybe like a man. I love the idea of these trips, letting our boys do something fun, but also something really challenging and ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Both of our boys had to dig deep on these trips to keep up with their dad, remember- superhuman endurance dude. This is a tradition that I was glad to see my husband make room for.