Another year passed and it is here again. The best part of the year. The nicest time we always spend together. Multiday hiking trip with kids. This year - Sumava in CR. It is not easy, maybe it is not for everybody, but it works like a magic. Leaving behind all the daily duties, work tasks, computer, signal, restaurants, kids demands, unnecessary things. Putting yourself on a border of own powers. As well as kids. During the hike, you might not yet feel happy, as well as kids don't, but in the end, they jump around your neck, telling you that they love you. It is so simple. Just being together. Clean your mind, forget about everything. It is never that easy as when walking with super heavy backpack through the nature. You only focus on the weight of the backpack, next steps, views, hunger...I might repeat myself a bit, but I think it is worth to repeat yourself once a year about these things, which make me really truly happy.
I love the forced minimalism which I can enjoy for some days. As our home is always so cluttered with things we do not have the heart to throw away, things which we thought at some point that might be useful, and things somebody else thought we definitely need, on the hike, only stuff which we truly need for survival is with us. You do
not
take any nonsense as already the essential things make the backpack so
heavy that it is hard to lift. The less stuff you have, the easier life is. Like if the weight of the backpack would directly ask you if you could not still take less. One book, diaries and maybe cards are more than enough fun for
all of us.
The work, which has to be done is so clear that it is way easier to share. Even a blind person sees that to eat, we have to cook, to sleep, we have to build a tent and prepare the sleeping bags. Who doesn't want to eat from a bowl with an old porridge inside, cleans the bowl. There are no unnecessary home duties. You do not have to vacuum clean the forest, you do not have to wipe the floor after somebody dropped some food on the ground. You do not have to wash and hang loads of clothes as you have only very few things which you might wash in a spring as a part of an adventure - washing your T-shirt in a spring is a cool experience, which everybody can do for himself or herself.
One of the best things on multiday hike is for me that there are no daily discussions about where we will go, what we will do, "why should we go anywhere?". I truly hate spending days with discussing about program. I want to do stuff, I do not want to argue and discuss about it, I do not want to persuade anybody, I do not want to spend the time which I could enjoy somewhere on a trip by discussing if we go on the trip. To be honest, I am also not a big fun of day trips around a house and its surrounding neither of traveling for one day trip further away. If you have the same problem that you keep having neverending discussions with your family about daily program, then you should definitely go for a multiday hike. On the multiday hike, there is a far goal given, which means that there is no discussion every morning. You have to discuss only once - before you start. Then it is clear for all the next days. Kids only ask how many kilometers we go each day and when it is 20 and less, it is approved. Do not cheat, kids really hate it, better tell them the truth.
Although I normally like cycling more than hiking, multiday hike is actually better than any cycling holidays. It makes forces between us and kids more equal. But the main difference is, that hiking leaves the mind clearer as there is less stuff to break and to care for. I learned, that all those things you have to care for are really stressing me and do not let me enjoy my time - I do not want to worry about car, bike, equipment, about buses, which might be delayed, planes, which might be missed, I like once per year just to be. Then I can really let my mind rest. Sure, sometimes your shoe might get destroyed, but if it is not freezing, it is typically not a big problem.
As I just mentioned, the fact that you make equal forces is really important. Kids see that to carry everything we need, we really cannot help them more, that our backpacks are already too heavy for us, which means that we have to use all our powers to manage. This feeling of equality makes kids so amazing colleagues and partners. They accept their backpacks and neither complain too much, nor persuade us to carry them for them.
One side benefit is, that I always get enough sleep. I am looking forward to come back to my bed as my back might be a bit hurting after sleeping outside and also not getting enough space in the tent. But at home, I never can so easily force myself to go to sleep on time. There is always something which I want to fit into the day. Here, we live in one tent, it is dark outside, you do not want to wake up anybody. So we just go to sleep together. Anyway, after the day walk, we would not be able to stay awake, even if we would like to. So even when sleeping in a tent might be sometimes hard for your backs, it gives you a great rest.
The second side benefit is, that I once per year can feel really hungry and exhausted. I really like it. There is nothing so great as putting yourself on the borders. The feeling afterwards is truly great. Also once per year feeling a bit of hunger is really nice feeling. Otherwise I might forget the basic feelings and how great it feels to eat any food which comes. Plus nobody complains about almost any dish since everything tastes so great when you are hungry.
There is one important thing to note - you should not overestimate too much your forces. During the year, your memories fade, your eyes get bigger. You want to do something even cooler than the last year, but if you have to carry 7 or 8 more kilograms in a human weight (as the kid to be carried doubled the weight since last year), you should be reasonable, otherwise you might easily spoil the whole experience. After Lapland, when Robert was a tiny nothing carried in a belly and we managed to carry all our stuff for a week, last year, we were in Corsica. We left all our unnecessary stuff in a camp, went just for 3 days and didn't carry much food. Anyway, this year, I almost forgot that I had a feeling, it was a bit too much. The nature and mountains were just amazing, but they were way steeper then the valley in Lapland, and it was a bit over our borders. Not, that we would have problems with getting tired (of course we were, but the weight was manageable), but it was sometimes getting a bit too challenging and dangerous on the descents and ascents when carrying a baby and the backpack.
This year, my eyes were again getting bigger and bigger with the approaching summer. I got an idea that we should make some nice hike in Alps - we can stay there for a week with parents and then have another week hiking. I knew that Hohe Tauren are maybe a bit too steep, so we started to think about sleeping in huts. But there were some buts - it is expensive, who knows what are the rules for vaccination, we will be forced to reach them (in Corsica we never reached the camp)...the relaxing time started to smell again by too much organization burden and too little relaxation for mind. To be honest, in the end I was really happy that the weather was supposed to be rainy, Terka's shoes got broken, we forgot at home Robert's jacket, and friends returned home from Austria as they were after their trip in the tent totally wet and didn't want to get more rain...We quickly changed our plans, and went from Austria for Sumava multiday hiking and it was amazing. Kids wrote to the book of the highest Sumava mountain Plechy that we just arrived from Alps and compared to the mountains there this hill is really small (voila, just train for a week kids in Hohe Tauren, then they feel Sumava is a flat valley), we got bambilion of blueberries and raspberries (funny to see them in the diapers afterwards) and the only negative was that thanks to the growing teeth, we made some people maybe a bit annoyed by early alarm in the camping place :-D.
And next year, I really hope that they finally open Ladakh! Because if we still have to carry our smallest one, we need something flat :).
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