Most life lessons I intend to share are lessons I taught to one of my sons.  This lesson, however, was taught to me by my middle son Charlie on our first backpacking trip together.

Slow Down!

10 minutes in, the first “can we stop for a snack?” came.  Literally: 10. Minutes. In.  We only planned to hike 2 miles, with essentially no elevation gain, to reach the campsites along Hyas Lake in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests just North of Cle Elum, WA.  I planned to hike slower with little legs leading the way, but I didn’t plan on stopping every 10 minutes.

At 20 minutes, he was ready to eat lunch on a “balance beam” log on the side of the trail.  It was a stop I would never take so early, and I was impatient.  But this was my first backpacking trip with one of my sons, so I was in a head space to let it fly.  We ate our food, then practiced walking the balance beams;  we started walking again.

A few steps later, Charlie was searching for a walking stick.

After that, we saw some prints on the trail that weren’t hiking boots or shoes.

Charlie learned that he liked to take 10 second breaks…often.

Oooh, look!  Another balance beam.  Oops, I fell off; better start over!

That flat, 2 mile walk took over 2 hours.  We walked an average of less than 1 mile per hour, instead of the 2.5 to 3 miles per hour I typically hike with a backpack.

And it was amazing.

I noticed things I never would have seen: mushrooms, those prints on the trail, the different types of trees in this forest, the little details that make a natural walking stick work as a real hiking pole, and – of course – the fun of walking balance beams.  We talked about anything that crossed Charlie’s mind.  I pointed out tiny details that can only be seen when standing still (and he listened and was interested!).

We even verbally wrote a kids book about a separate world of humans living underground who see the world in a different way because of where they live.

I had so much fun on the trail, even before we saw the lake, or set up camp, or had our night hike, or failed at making trail macaroni and cheese.  Charlie taught me to enjoy the slow journey and not just rush through to the end.

Even though we could have hiked much faster on the way back, we didn’t.  Going slow was so much better.