Climbing ... while towing along an infant

For those of you with kids...

My wife and I are headed to Bishop soon, and we're bringing along our 11-month old girl. I've got a backpack to carry her in, but she's incredibly squirmy and I know I won't be able to set down the backpack for too long before she starts whining.

So what have you done in the past if you've taken a little one to the crag? I can't just set her down on a blanket -- for fear she'll crawl away. And I can't haul the pack 'n play around.

Any ideas?

Yeah, that's definitely a tough age. I have one thats almost 4 and one that is 22 months. All ages seem to have their own issues and problems you have to deal with.

Around Bishop I've only bouldered at the Buttermilks and Rock Creek, which are both relatively flat and safe areas for a little one to stumble around. One thing I've brought lately that helps is sand toys - shovels, buckets, sieves. Seems to work pretty good for my kids.

Good luck and have fun!

I get to pull this tired old gag up about once a year:

Phil and Lauren (11 days old) Pickett on the start of the Nautilus Traverse

They make excellent crash pads!

When our daughter was real young we would just load her in the bounceanette. It was a fully enclosed vibrating pod. She seemed to enjoy it and it kept her safe from the rattlers. As she got older one of us would belay while keeping an eye on her. The best was when we made friends with a climbing couple who had their own wee one. Our daughters would play in the dirt while we cranked. I've also seen pictures of kids in jolly jumpers anchored to tree limbs. Three adults works the best. One can totally focus on climbing, one on belaying, and one on watching your pride and joy. Switch roles and you can repeat all day long. Good luck with your trip. Make sure you have lots of sand toys, snacks, water, milk, wipes, diapers, and trash bag.

Anyway, I think you already know the truth of the matter. Your priorities are now no longer yours. If you must haul her to the crag, here are some parameters in order of priority:

• She must be kept safe. A bump on the skull from a golf-ball sized rock is a nasty bump to us, but possibly fatal to her. Does the base have vipers? Bad fall potential? Heat?
• Someone has to be fully engaged with her 100% of the time. This person cannot double as your belayer. In other words, you need some helpers. Perhaps other climbing parents, or some extremely benevolent kind person.

In all likelihood, you will follow the path many of us before you have trod. You will learn to spend more time simply hiking, camping, hanging around a camp, etc. It takes quite some time before a child is ready to bring along cragging. My 9-year old still requires constant watching, the latest danger now is scrambling and bouldering without much common sense.

Hopefully you guys have some family to drop her off with so you and the wife can still get out some on your own.

Bring a pack n play... seriously. And also consider a small tent for napping. I've never done the bouldering thing, but it was always hit-or-miss while cragging.

Whew!!!! I am so relieved. I read the title of this thread and thought you might be considering hauling your child up a big wall or something......

I feel much better.

Prayer, Jon. Prayer.

Like Andy, it was always hit or miss for us. My child could never be contained by a pack-n-play - he just wouldn't go for it (usually involved something like a rapid meltdown). So, if we were cragging, we would always make sure to have at least one more person so that there was always someone on the ground spotting. Naps (a necessity) were always hit or miss at that age, but I could usually get ours to go to sleep with a ride in the backpack.

Good luck!

Rick Blair wrote:Whew!!!! I am so relieved. I read the title of this thread and thought you might be considering hauling your child up a big wall or something...... I feel much better.

padded haul bag with air holes. hahaha

Well, we're climbing at the Buttermilks, so it's pretty close to the car for naptime. Last time I was there, I climbed with the mother of a 2-year-old who put her daughter down for naps, then bouldered with a baby monitor (seriously, <50yds from parking -- don't freak out).

Thanks for the suggestions, folks -- keep 'em coming!!

I take a hyper-active child to the crag occasionally, he's a 30-something called Andy, but as long as I give him 20 odd cams to play with and regular water-n-snacks he doesn't get too cranky, generally entertaining himself with some fearsome 200 foot finger crack whilst I pretend to pay attention to the rope and play with his kids.

More seriously, my folks used to pack a complete wooden play pen into the back country with me, then stick it in the middle of some big snow patch and ski round me all day. Mad, I have enough trouble just carrying my own gear.

Likely see you in Moab mate,
The Brit babysitter.

We bring a highly ventilated tent with a removable fly to work as 'pack-n-play' and a few toys. As Mike Lane said, someone has to watch the child, unless they are napping within earshot. Finding the right group of friends or families to share duty is paramount...sometimes good climbing partners turn into lousy and unreliable helpers in that setting. The recent Climbing has a great article on the topic.

Give it a try, go with a flexibility you might have never known possible for a day at the crags...low expectations is the place to start.

Seems like bouldering is a good choice. For sport climbing, a group of 3 would be ideal, but if you're bouldering, I would think the two of you could handle it. The ass pain will come in moving around. The nice thing about Sport is that you can camp out in the same area all day, and not have to move all of your stuff, which will be about 3x as much as usual when you have a kid. I would scour the guidebook and scope out a couple areas that have a high concentration of problems for you, so you don't have to hike around a lot.

I was very grateful to be able to climb at Penitente (in CO) when our son was that age...we could roll our stroller right up to the climbs, so it made it easy to move around. Oh yeah, bring lots of extra clothes, cause that kid is gonna get DIRTY!

Ian Buckley wrote:I take a hyper-active child to the crag occasionally, he's a 30-something called Andy, but as long as I give him 20 odd cams to play with and regular water-n-snacks he doesn't get too cranky, generally entertaining himself with some fearsome 200 foot finger crack whilst I pretend to pay attention to the rope...

Hilarious.

Mike Howard wrote:We bring a highly ventilated tent with a removable fly to work as 'pack-n-play' and a few toys.

Bingo...that works great.

When my infant was six months I use to take him climbing and carry a whisperlite stove with me. I would heat up formula, swaddle him and put him in a safe location from rock fall, ants ,whatever within a few feet of the belayer. Worked great, but as the child gets older that doesnt work anymore. Bouldering is the best option and if roped climbing, a party of three is the only way to go as a child gets older and becomes more of a threat to themselves. The child is the main priority, not climbing, so don't expect to get much climbing in.

Also if you catch one of those Vipers tie a breathable sack around its head and it can entertain a child for hours.

Mike Anderson wrote:that kid is gonna get DIRTY!

Future hard-man Lucas Anderson demonstrates the proper technique for resting between redpoint burns.

small tents or tarps are key for making little forts for 'em to hang in.

the 1 year mark is difficult- they're moving around constantly but still haven't figured out how to hang. take friends with other slightly older kids if possible?

my kiddo's 7now and finally figured it out:

One request to all who bring children to the crag: Please be VERY, VERY cognizant of rock fall.

I've been to Shelf Road on more than one occasion and seen families with infants in some form of open-top crib sitting right next to the crag.

I've only been to Shelf maybe 10 times but, in that little time, I've personally pulled fist-sized chunks of rock off while climbing, seen others sent tumbling by ropes being thrown down for rappel (my dog is very, very lucky...one landed 4 inches from her sleeping head), and I've been sprinkled by countless small rock fragments that may not be so small to a little one.

They can't move when someone yells, "ROCK!". Please keep that in mind and protect them.

Haha - nice pic, Mark. I have one somewhere that I thought I would try to dig up that's pretty similar, but I can't seem to find it. Our child crashed a couple of times while we were cragging, and we thought, hooray! this is easy. But, alas, those days where he just falls over seem to have passed. Sniff...

Go with a small pop tent . bring a dvd player if she is in to that sort of thing.

SAL wrote: . bring a dvd player if she is in to that sort of thing.

Put on some John Denver, lights out!