For the past year, A has been fully interested in wilderness survival. He learned a lot about survival last summer at an AVID for Adventure camp, watches survival shows and practices cutting down wood and starting fires (in our fireplace) at our mountain place. He's been begging me to take him backpacking, so while LT was away at camp, we planned a trip with his friend and that friend's mom. We went to Fancy Lake. It was steep, and buggy, and rugged and poured rain, but we had the best time. No one complained about their heavy packs, or the fact that we forgot the gas to cook our food (in fact, they loved inventing new foods with what we did have, the favorite being raw ramen tacos). We hiked about 2 miles, set up camp, and the continued the rest of the way up to the most magical lake before heading back down to our camp.
Once back at the campsite, these two wandered off and soon came back lugging chopped wood to build furniture (a table, chairs and a place to put our array of food).
And in an attempt to play on a floating log, inevitably feel in a mountain pond.
