Hi. I'm Mark. My daughter Emma is eight, and since the spring of 1998 the two of us have gone for a hike almost every Saturday morning. Nothing heroic: two to five miles, on trails in the oak and pine country of the Sierra foothills within about an hour of our house, back home by lunch (or by dinner, if there was a creek). Emma's mom works Saturdays and, in her words, "prefers her nature through a window," so Saturdays became ours.

I started writing the hikes down in a notebook so I'd remember which trails had shade and which had poison oak, and Emma started adding what she saw. Then Emma's teacher asked for a copy of the notebook for a class project, and my brother said, put it on the web, so here it is. This page is really the notebook typed out, plus the few things we've figured out about hiking with a kid that I wish somebody had told me. If you've got a kid and a pair of sneakers, you can do all of this. It is the best part of my week.

A word about names: I've called the trails by what we call them and said in a general way where they are, mostly because Emma likes having our own names for things and partly because the best trail near our house is best because nobody else knows about it.

Newest at the bottom, the way a notebook goes. Distances are round trip, and they are guesses off the trail signs and my watch. "E noticed" is Emma's part, written down more or less as she said it.

Total so far in 1999: 16 hikes, about 50 miles. Emma has walked every step of it. Next up: we're hoping for one more waterfall trip when the rains come back, and Emma has requested "a hike where it snows," which is going to require some planning.

These took about a year to work out. They're in the order we figured them out, which is roughly the order of how important they are.

1. Turn around before anybody's tired. Not when, before. The kid decides. If Emma says she wants to go back, we go back, no negotiating, no "just to that tree." The first few times, that meant some very short hikes. But she learned that saying so was safe, so now she says so at the right time, and mostly she doesn't need to. A kid who's had one miserable death march will not want to come next Saturday. A kid who's never had one will.
2. Snacks are not a reward, they're equipment. We stop every 30 to 45 minutes whether or not anyone is hungry, and there is always something good in the pack. Emma packs her own snack bag Friday night. The current lineup: cheese crackers, a fruit leather, a small bag of pretzels, and exactly four gummy bears for the top of whatever we climb.
3. Water every stop. Kids don't notice thirst until they're cranky. A cranky kid on a trail is, nine times out of ten, a thirsty kid. Make it a rule and it stops being a fight.
4. The "find five things" game. Before we start, we pick five things to find: something red, something that flies, something soft, an animal track, a tree with a hole in it. Whoever spots one calls it out. Emma has never once asked "how much farther" when she was two things away from five. We change the list every hike. This is the single best trick we have.
5. Kid picks the pace, and it's slower than you think. Our "three miles" takes two hours because everything is interesting, and everything is interesting. I stopped wearing a watch on the trail this year. If you have a place to be at noon, do the short hike.
6. Stop at every creek. Non-negotiable, and one of the reasons we're slow. Rocks must be thrown. Sticks must be raced. Feet may or may not get wet, depending on the weather and whether we have socks in the pack (see gear). It's fine. It's the point.
7. Stay where you can see me, and if you can't, stop and yell. Emma may run ahead to the next bend, and no farther. If she ever can't see me, she stops right where she is, sits down, and blows the whistle, and I come to her. We've practiced. We've never needed it.
8. Don't put anything in your mouth that Dad didn't hand you. Berries, mushrooms, the creek. The blackberries in September were approved. The mushrooms after the rain were not, and she knew it.
9. It's her hike, too. She gets to name the trails, choose between two hikes, decide when we stop, and carry the map (upside down; doesn't matter). I don't hike faster than her and I don't tell her to hurry. I could cover the same three miles alone in forty minutes. I don't want to.

Emma's pack. A small kid-sized daypack, the kind with a chest strap so it doesn't slide off. It holds her water bottle, her snack bag, her whistle on a cord, a bandanna, an extra pair of socks, a little notebook and a pencil, and whatever rock she found last time and forgot to take out. Maybe three pounds. The rule is that she carries her own stuff and nothing of mine; the first time she carried it the whole way without asking me to take it, she was prouder than I've ever seen her.

The whistle. A plastic one, loud, on a cord around her neck under her shirt. Three blasts means "I need Dad." It is for emergencies only and she knows that, and she has only blown it once for real, when she saw a snake (the stick; see April). That's fine. That's what it's for.

Shoes. Sneakers were fine for the first six months. This year she got a pair of low kids' hiking boots, mostly for the creeks, and she loves them beyond all reason. Whatever the shoes, the socks matter more: no cotton, and always a spare pair.

My pack. An old daypack with the real first-aid kit, the map, the extra water, the rain jackets, the lunch, the flashlight, the camera (the film from the redwood trip is finally at the drugstore; pictures soon, I hope), a trash bag, and about two pounds of stuff I've never used and won't take out.

What we don't have: a fancy anything. Walking sticks are found at the trailhead and returned at the end. The only thing I'd say to buy new is the boots, and only once the kid is really hooked.

The mountaineering clubs have had a "ten essentials" list for decades. This is what it looks like for a dad and an eight-year-old going three miles from the parking lot. I carry most of it; Emma carries the starred ones.

Hi. I am Emma and I am 8 and I am in third grade. I go hiking with my Dad on Saturdays. I have gone on 16 hikes this year and my Dad says it is 50 miles which is farther than to my Grandma's house.

My favorite hike is the Waterfall Trail because there is a waterfall and in March it was so loud you could feel it on your face and there was a rainbow but only if you stood in the exact right spot and I found the spot. Also there are baby blue eyes which are flowers and that is their real name, I didn't make it up. My second favorite is the Sitting Tree which I found because we went backwards. If you go on a trail you should go backwards sometimes because the trail is different backwards.

The best thing I ever saw was the BANANA SLUG. It was on the redwood hike in June. It was on a log by the trail and it was YELLOW like a banana, that is why it is called that, and it was as long as my whole hand, Dad measured. It was really slow. It had little feelers that went in when I got close and came back out when I stayed still. I stayed still for a long time. I did not touch it because Dad said it would get slime on me and also it might not like it. There was another one on a fern that was smaller and had spots. Banana slugs eat leaves and mushrooms and they help the forest by eating the dead stuff. They only live where it is wet, that is why they were at the redwoods and not at our regular hike where it is dry. I want to go back and see if they are still there. I named the big one Bob.

My rules for kids who go hiking:

1. Bring gummy bears but only four so you don't eat them all before the top.
2. If you are tired SAY SO. It's a rule. My Dad made it.
3. Look for five things. If you find all five before the end you win.
4. Throw rocks in every creek. This is allowed.
5. Don't touch the banana slug.

Thank you for reading my page. If you have a kid tell them to come hiking, it is fun and you get to see stuff. Bye.

Love, Emma (age 8)