enlightened by actions: hiking & backpacking with a babe

Here's a guide for all you people out there who want to lug your baby up a mountain & share all that extra room in your sleeping bag with a wriggly bedfellow. It's fun, I swear.

The first thing you want to do find a carrier that is comfortable for you & that your babe will tolerate. For us that's the Ergo 360. Sampson is happy as a clam in it & naps like a champ when he wants to.

What we love about it:

Its comfortable and puts all the weight on your lower body, leaving your shoulders pain free.
You can wear your babe facing in, facing out, on your hip, or on your back. For steeper descents or river crossings, I've found that having him on my front feels safer in case I fall on my bum. For up hills, it's easier on my body to have him on the back and in case I fall on my face.
For backpacking trips or if you're hiking alone, you can wear the babe on the front, and have your back free for a backpack full of gear. We have a big 65 L backpack for one person carry with most of the heavier gear and we have a small 25 L bag for diapers/wipes/clothing/bear spray/maps for the person carrying Sampson. This is definitely harder on your back + shoulders because you can't use the waist strap on the backpack to evenly distribute weight, however, you can pack more stuff than if you use a exclusive back carrier.
It's washable!

It is a warmer carrier without much air flow making for a sweaty hike for you + for baby. We had to play around with how many layers Sam would have to wear to keep him at a comfortable temperature, balancing the outside temp with our combined body heat. There was a month where he started getting eczema on his trunk & behind his knees from the sweat + friction. We solved that by taking more frequent breaks & letting his skin dry out of the carrier and putting him in a shirt & pants from Patagonia made of light weight/ quick dry fabric.

We also have this Osprey carrier. Sampson hated it at first so it mostly got used as a makeshift high chair at home. He seems to have warmed up to it recently, since sitting up on his own, and we managed a six mile hike. I think that this will become a primary carrier for us the heavier/bigger he gets. It has great structure with airflow for both baby + the bearer, decent storage eliminating the need for an additional backpack, and a bomb sunshade. The only downside for us is it's bigger size for storage and the fact that Sam delights in pulling my hair from his high perch. [I fixed this by wearing a backwards baseball cap with my hair tucker underneath.]

If you live in a mosquito infested area, this Marmot 2 person tent, will be your best friend for lunch or nursing breaks. It's only 4 lbs and it attaches easily to the bottom of our backpack . It can set up in about 60 seconds and break down in the same amount of time.

This hammock is a new addition to our lives and I could wax poetic about it. It only weighs 1 lb., stuffs into a small sack that's attached to it. You have to buy these straps separately. The whole thing is brilliantly easy to set up & is perfect for taking a break & nursing. It's absolutely not necessary, but it is a luxury.

As for sleeping in a tent with a baby... I honestly haven't found a perfect way to make it work, but I think I have figured out how to make it bearable! The nights here get down to 30 degrees so it's a challenge making sure he's warm enough, I'm warm enough, and that his face isn't covered. If you cosleep, the best advice I can give is get a sleeping pad that works for you, wear layers, unzip your sleeping bag and use it as a blanket instead of trying to zip the two of you into the bag. I've found that the thinner pads are more comfortable for me & work better than a 2-3 inch pad that you're constantly afraid he'll roll off of. If you don't cosleep + your babe is one of those magical unicorns that sleeps through the night or can nurse and be put back down to sleep easily, we have zipped Sam into my jacket and tucked him into our backpack to make a little sleeping bag.