Hiking with Teddy

We hiked before kids, even backpacking our way across Isle Royale National Park, covering 50+ miles carrying all we needed. We continued hiking when we had AJ, excitedly purchasing a backpack carrier and taking him to our favorite camping spot at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. When we had Teddy, we added a second carrier to our collection. As AJ grew older and more capable, he began hiking on his own. 

That's a good thing because Teddy continued to get larger and heavier to carry. He also outgrew the initial carrier we had, so we switched to soft-sided carriers and continued to upgrade to the largest size we could find as outgrew each one. We would rotate hikes, where I'd carry him one hike and my husband would carry him the next. Then we started rotating during the course of a hike, switching out to ease the workload. 

Then a pandemic hit and greatly limited the hiking and exploring we did. And Teddy continued to grow. Each time I loaded him onto my back, my husband expressed concern that I'd permanently hurt myself. When I carried Teddy for 2 miles last spring, up and down the side of a pretty steep hill, I begrudgingly accepted that was likely the last time I'd carry him that distance. 

Teddy is absolutely capable of walking on his own. There's a couple challenges in hiking with Teddy:

1. He doesn't have the stamina to walk long distances.
2. His balance is still wonky, so he stumbles and falls frequently. This doesn't phase him, but sometimes he does get bumps and bruises from these falls.
3. He's a strong-willed boy who doesn't listen well. Often he wants to go the opposite direction, or off trail completely, and just takes off running. This isn't safe, nor does it help us reach the destination.
4. When Teddy doesn't want to walk, he will simply collapse and melt to become one with the ground. He's 70+ pounds of dead weight. Unlike AJ, who could be motivated to continue hiking bribing him with M & Ms, we haven't found anything that can consistently convince Teddy to resume. 

When Teddy wants to hike, he does amazing. He is surprisingly good about balancing with rocks and roots, although I think it's just his momentum propelling him forward. It's fantastic physical therapy for him. Although he falls, he falls far less often than I'd expect. The challenge is that when he doesn't want to hike, we don't have a lot of good options.

On vacation, we did a 2-mile hike. We were able to push Teddy in his adapted chair for the first half mile (and then the last half mile on the way back) before the terrain became impossible to navigate his chair. Trust me, I'm willing to push him over rocks and roots and can cover more terrain than you might expect. But this was large rocks with steep inclines and a bridge far too narrow for his chair. 

He hiked fairly well on his own for about a quarter mile or so and then did #3 and #4 from the above list. Our nanny and Dave tried to cajole him along while I checked on AJ who had hiked ahead. Then they carried him with piggybacks, fireman carry and some really questionable techniques. So on the way back, I simply loaded Teddy onto my back rather than all the struggle. We look ridiculous, but it's not challenging to carry him short distances (less than a half mile) over relatively level terrain. And it's much easier than the non-stop struggle to get him to move on his own.

He still loves going up. Honestly, so do I.

Our hikes will have to continue to adapt. His chair will cover quite a bit of terrain, so I'm excited that we can explore using that. I've also told him he needs to learn to listen before he grows so large that I can no longer carry him ... sure hope he listens to that request.