With Mt. Bachelor still enveloped by a powerful winter storm in early February, Mark decided instead to venture out to Swampy Lakes with Owen in tow.
Located at 5,800 feet along the Cascades Lake Highway, the sno-park is still at a high enough elevation to get walloped with snow, but is spared the biting cold winds that can make an otherwise good day on the ski hill miserable.
Mark had anticipated this trek all morning. He pictured Owen loving the stadium view over his shoulder as Owen rode in our Deuter Kid Comfort II Child Carrier and surveyed the snowy landscape around him. Owen, however, wasn’t about to go along with this plan. As Mark strapped on his snowshoes in the parking lot, Owen — perched on the bumper and watching him with a discerning eye — shot him the, “uh, where are my snowshoes?” look. It was the harbinger of a forest-rattling temper tantrum that was enough to send his poor dad packing before ever stepping foot on the trail. A couple of weeks after “The Incident,” we bought Owen a pair of plastic, lightweight snowshoes and set out for Edison Sno-Park. With trails that zigzag across open terrain, over and around lava flows and through stands of lodge pole and ponderosa pine, Edison is a snowshoe paradise. At the trailhead, Owen donned his own gear and began his awkward penguin-like march on the crusty snow. He beamed with pride even as his feet got tangled and he tumbled over himself. He was a big boy. He was doing it on his own.
After an hour of tromping around and scaling hills, Owen began to wear down. A mile or so out from where we started, we decided to turn back.
Only this time, when Mark asked Owen to crawl into his comfy Kid Comfort II Child Carrier, he happily obliged. The sun on his back and a smile on his face, Owen chatted with his dad all the way back to the car.
–Lisa Goodman (Family Ambassador).
Get out and explore with your little one!
- Learn all about the Kid Comfort II at Deuter.com
- Pick one up from Eastern Mountain Sports
- Grab your own at Summit Hut
- Buy one from Rock Creek