Winters can be hard with little kids. Especially in BC it is hard to find places with easy access and ideally also a warm destination. That is why Methow Valley is one of the best places we have gone with kids. It is a pretty long drive for us in winter time, and the first time we did the drive it was on a really cold weekend in early January with a 5 month old. It was a bit much, but we still loved our time there so much that we came back the following year. That time we waited until the days were a bit longer in February. The ski in is relatively easy as you can get your stuff snowmobiled in, the cabins are well stocked and easy to warm, and the cross country trails are top class. We have not been there since, due to having another baby and then the pandemic, but we definitely want to return in a year or two. This is a video from our first visit there, when our two oldest kids were 5 months and 4years old. We went with another family with two kids aged 3 and 5.
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This summer we hiked the classic Berg Lake trail in Mount Robson provincial park. It was our first multiday hike as a family of five. We were not quite sure how it was even going to work when we started, but it worked out better than we could have imagined. The packs were heavy, but the kids did amazing. Read more about the trip here. And check out what we had in those giant packs here. Over 5 days in late May we paddled the Sayward canoe route with another family. We had amazing weather, which made it feel like a summer trip. The route has a pretty high ratio of portaging to canoeing, which I had been worried about before the trip. However, we quickly discovered that Christian could portage the canoe by himself fairly easily, which meant that I just had to encourage our 3.5 year old to walk. In the end the trip felt pretty casual even-though I was 7 month pregnant with our 2nd. Read more about the trip and the route here. The last two months of my parental leave we spend biking around Europe. My absolute favourite part of the trip was the five days we spend biking Rallarvegen from Haugastøl to Flåm in Norway. Rallarvegen is a beautiful 82 kilometres closed gravel road, initially built to service the train line. It is immensely popular with cyclists (for good reason), but since it was still early in the season the throngs of cyclists were replaced by rumours that the road was still impassible due to snow coverage. There was definitely some snow, but we still managed to drag our heavy rigs across it. We were rewarded with never ending beautiful views, easy accessible mountains to climb, and we didn't have to share any of it. Read more about the trip here. Bowron Lakes is one of those must do trips in BC if you like canoeing. I never really considered myself a canoeist, but now it seems like one of the easiest ways to get all the kids out in the wilderness. Up until last winter we didn't even own a canoe yet, but when our third had arrived we jumped on a good deal and got ourselves a massive canoe, a 20' Mackenzie. The summer 2020 seemed like an excellent summer to become a real canoeing family, with COVID arriving as well, it was great to be able to get out away from the crowds. And in mid August it was time for the big canoe test - 116km of paddling and 11 km of portaging over the course of 8 days. We had a bit of a rough start, but quickly got into the grove of the trip. Christian did end up doing a lot of paddling on his own especially towards the end, and I think he got a bit tired... Read more about the trip here. Our first multi-day camping trip as a family was in 2014 when our oldest daughter was 10 month old. I dreamt up the trip during long nights of nursing (she was not a fan of sleeping at night). It seemed really big at the time, but now years later and with two more kids I wonder why we didn't do more. I guess the learning curve was steep! Read more about the trip here. In 2016 when our oldest were just 2 years old we went on a hike into Chekamus Lake. The hike in itself is really nothing special, but it still stands out as one of my favourite family trips. We went with a few other families, dragged a canoe in there and had the two two year olds on run bikes. Having the canoe along added another dimension and allowed us to get further away from the crowds and enjoy the great views from the middle of the lake. Read more about the trip here. As part of a trip to Skageway to hike the Chilkoot trail we spend an extra couple of days in Juneau. The area around Mendenhall Lake was absolutely spectacular. There is a car camping site right on the lake and easy trails close by. We chose a more challenging trail to Mount McGinnis. I remember it as one of the most challenging trails we have done with kids, but also one of the most spectacular. The view of the Mendenhall Glacier from our tent site was hard to beat. |
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