Inga's Adventures

I’m always on the lookout for great places to camp in the wilderness, especially with kids. I see some of the crowded campgrounds with wall to wall tents, mashed next to RVs belching fumes from their noisy generators, and think, “This is not nature, it’s the suburbs in a tent”. To introduce young children to the joys of the wilderness it’s great if you can find campsites that are bordering a wilderness area, but are easy to access and provide good day hiking opportunities. We were recently visiting our friends, Jim and Julie, in Running Springs, CA, near Big Bear Lake. We stepped from their house into a different world as they live on the edge of the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area in the San Bernardino Mountains, 75 miles east of Los Angeles. As we were hiking along the local trails we came across a paved access road with primitive campsites, called Yellow Post Camp Sites. There is ample space between them to give some measure of privacy without feeling like you’re camping on top of one another. We saw a couple of them that had gorgeous vistas of the surrounding peaks, and had large boulders all around to provide scrambling fun for youngsters. The Yellow Post Camp Sites are available on a first- come first-served basis. We started taking our godchildren camping when they were 4 and 6 years old, respectively. The first two years we took them to an area like this to get them used to sleeping outdoors in a tent in a natural setting. After that we started taking relatively short backpacking trips (under 5 miles) in the wilderness and they love it. Now they carry their own backpacks and every year they can carry more weight. When I hear people say they wish they could camp and hike like they did before kids, and I hear that they kids are school age or older, I say, “Just do it.” If you live in Southern California, I highly recommend this area as a great place to introduce kids to the joys of camping.

Information: www.summitpost.org/area/range/171121/san-bernardino-mountains.html www.fs.fed.us/r5/sanbernardino/recreation/camping/index.shtml