Backpacking

[CmdrSlack]

So, I'm not sure how many of you are into camping, etc., but I am.

I used to do some serious backpacking when I lived in Seattle, but the move back to Chicago pretty much killed that.

I finally got my wife and daughter into camping last year. After easing them into car camping, I then added in some shitty weather camping. Things have gone well so far.

My daughter loves to hike and is very enthusiastic about camping, so this year is the year I get them into backpacking. My big problem so far is that I'm having a tough time finding information about good beginner backpacking routes that will also not suck in the third week of March. My daughter will be on spring break, and we're planning on taking a backpacking trip. She's getting a new pack and boots, etc. for her birthday, so this all works out well.

I've been digging around on Google, etc. and while I've found some decent sites, I'd also appreciate any suggestions from you guys.

Here's my basic criteria:

1) 12 hrs drive from Chicago max.
2) Ridgewalks are preferred as I'm the only one with serious mountain hiking experience.
3) Again, I'd prefer to not encounter totally shit weather for the first outing. Snow is out as we have 3-season gear. However, rain is fine.
4) If possible, trails with privies are probably a good thing. I'm not adverse to teaching the kid how to use a cathole --- she has a habit of hiding in a bush to piss at the park anyway. I also want to buy an entrenching tool, so yeah.

I have found a few stretches of the AT that look promising, but if anyone has some experience with this, I'd love the input.

I have some great ideas for the later spring, summer, and fall that are in the UP and Wisconsin, etc., but I just don't have enough experience with the wilderness between Illinois and Alabama, in particular during the early spring.

[Sky]

We've only done day hikes and not even that in the last couple years. NY trails are pretty much garbage in March and you'll never know if it's rain or snow until it's here. Going to make a big push to get hiking again this year, we like fire tower hikes, short and great views.

Used to do camping a lot when I was a kid. Where camping is setting up a campsite, bbq and keg in a state park.

[Signe]

Backpackers are just human fodder for serial killers.  I've seen the films!

[Nebu]

Off the top of my head:

Minnesota/WI superior area Duluth to Grand Marais
UP of Michigan
Asheville, NC area
Central TN
Ozarks (Petite Jean, Mount Magazine) in AR

All good starters.

Barnes & Noble will have a section on state parks and some nice hiking guides by state.  You can also likely find a phone app with trails and difficulty levels by state (I don't own a smartphone).

If you want details, I'd be happy to share my 40 years of hiking knowledge.  I've hiked extensively in 49 of the 50 states (still need to hike Alaska).

[Khaldun]

Did backcountry stuff as a teenager and college student in Sierras with family. Itching to start up again, been doing some tent camping with family but wife probably wouldn't like or be up to a backcountry trip. So thinking this spring of doing a section hike on the AT with my brother. We might be able to carve out as much as 3 weeks to do it in, so I'm toying with starting at Fontana Dam at the edge of the Smoky National Park and trying to get as far as Damascus VA. End of April to mid-May--the only concern I have is that we'll be in the middle of the major thru-hiker swarm, but I don't know if I can shift the timing to any later in May. I suppose if we started in Damascus and tried to get as far north as we could from there, starting around April 28th or so, we'd probably be ahead of everyone but the bleeding edge thru-hikers.

[Lantyssa]

Oh man, I love the area around Fontana Dam.  We used to stay in Fontana Village for a few weeks every year.  Absolutely gorgeous.

[Sky]

My fiancee has romanticized the AT, but she won't poop in an outhouse. Still trying to get her to make that logic meet up in the middle.

[CmdrSlack]

Just show her the cup-and-hose device that REI sells and explain what a cathole is. Outhouses become luxurious by comparison.

[ShenMolo]

Backpacker Magazine's website has some great destination ideas

You might want to choose an area that has civilized alternatives if the weather gets crappy or someone gets sick.

I took my daughters to Deep Creek in the Smokies a few years ago and on the first night my (then) 7 year old projectile vomited all over inside tent in the middle of a rain storm. We slept in a puddle of vomit in the tent all night.

We hiked out the next morning and headed into Bryson City and threw the tent, sleeping bags, clothes etc into a big commercial washing machine at a laundrymat. Spent the next two nights in a rental cabin and enjoyed tubing, rafting at the Nantahala river, and fly fishing, from the comfort of a cabin.

The main lesson I have learned from taking young kids backpacking is never plan hikes more than 2-3 miles at a time, and always have activities built in. Swimming holes, rocky overlooks, fishing, flower picking etc.

[ShenMolo]

Also, for those who just can't shit in the woods, there is the STRAP-N-CRAP

[Lantyssa]

Freaky.  Except for the cleft chin, that lady looks enough like me to be a sister.

[Sky]

Thanks for the mental image, Lant.

[Signe]

Oh sure.  Strap yourself to a tree.  Make it easy for the hillside cannibals to serial kill you!!!   

[Samwise]

I'm not an expert, but isn't it more difficult to dig a poop hole right next to a tree, what with the roots?

[Slayerik]

UP of Michigan is beautiful, and desolate!

[Tale]

Translation question: if hikers are called backpackers in US English, what do you call what I would call backpackers: young people travelling around the world on a low budget, generally staying in hostel/dorm accommodation, often as a gap year before/after college? Thanks.

[Evildrider]

I consider people that go out into the wilderness and stuff to see the sights hikers.  I consider backpackers the same as your definition Tale. 

[Lantyssa]

Layabouts.  Hostlers.  Students.

[ShenMolo]

US English (loosely defined):

Hikers: anyone walking trails in natural or wild places

Backpackers: hikers carrying backpacks with gear for overnight stays

I think the term "trekker" might fit the term for backpackers travelling the glove but staying at hostels etc. Not used a lot but it is used.

[Teleku]

Translation question: if hikers are called backpackers in US English, what do you call what I would call backpackers: young people travelling around the world on a low budget, generally staying in hostel/dorm accommodation, often as a gap year before/after college? Thanks.

We use the term for both, Tale. 

"I was backpacking up in the woods all weekend." 

"We stayed with a bunch of backpackers at a hostel in Berlin."

Basically, if you're doing something that involves you living out of your backpack, you get labeled a backpacker.  Hiking is used when you just go walk around trails for a day then come back to where ever you started.  Then of course there is Hitch Hiking, heh.

[kaid]

Translation question: if hikers are called backpackers in US English, what do you call what I would call backpackers: young people travelling around the world on a low budget, generally staying in hostel/dorm accommodation, often as a gap year before/after college? Thanks.

One thing to note the whole young people traveling around the world on a low budget is a much more european thing than something common in the US. When I am in Europe I see these kids all the time but in the US I only see people doing this very rarely. There are a couple factors to this. In europe you can go through multiple countries in a short distance. Also trains are a very viable way to get to a general area and hiking is a reasonable way to get around once you get to the general area you want to explore. Also the hostle is a much more common thing in Europe than anything you would see in the US.

As far as seeing the world on a budget if you are in the US you would have to spend a large chunk of money to see much of the world. Go north far enough you hit canada which is just a polite version of the US and go south far enough you hit mexico. To see anything else you would need some serious bling so not something youth can really do.

[Sky]

Yeah, the only people I knew who backpacked europe were rich kids.

[Draegan]

I thought this thread said Backpedaling and I came in for the lulz.

[ShenMolo]

I took a 2 month backpacking trip through Europe & Turkey in my college years in the mid 90's. Cost me @ $1000 US after airfare, most on a credit card.

Many of the other backpackers I met were either Australians or Kiwis and were on much longer trips. There was kind of underground network of jobs that the backpackers would take to allow them to stay on the road for a while. Some were working the grape harvest in Germany, others spent a few months in Israel on a kibbutz. The plan was to work a few months, travel a bit, work some more. Teaching English in formal or informal classes was another way to make enough to pay for a stay in some areas.

[Hammond]

Back in the mid-nineties I did a month and a half backpack trip across Europe with my cousin. I was still in high school (god I feel old) and we stayed with a few exchange students that had come over to the US the year before. Our trip was under 1000 including air fare which we easily saved up the previous summer working harvest jobs.

[Sheepherder]

I'd also appreciate any suggestions from you guys.

Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.

Really, the entire north shore of Lake Superior is pretty damn beautiful, but that's probably the closest to you in convenient park format near a fair sized city where you can buy stuffs if necessary.  Michigan is worth looking at because it should be pretty similar, but I know even less there.  If you do anything on the great lakes work the trip some way to take a ferry.

[CmdrSlack]

I'd also appreciate any suggestions from you guys.

Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.

Really, the entire north shore of Lake Superior is pretty damn beautiful, but that's probably the closest to you in convenient park format near a fair sized city where you can buy stuffs if necessary.  Michigan is worth looking at because it should be pretty similar, but I know even less there.  If you do anything on the great lakes work the trip some way to take a ferry.

This looks cool for the summer. Looks to be too cold for the end of March. I'm going to have to add this to my backpacking bookmarks folder.

[Signe]

I stayed at a hotel in Nottinghamshire once and it had lots of steps and there were trees and stuff outside.