My family recently decided to move to Colorado Springs after weeks of deliberation, several phone calls with the most tenuous of acquaintances, a session with a life coach and a highly subjective weighted pro/con sheet drawn up on a yellow legal pad. As I agonized over our options, I kept searching for the answer to a question I felt would be key to our family’s happiness: What is there to do?
From what I gathered, the answer in Colorado Springs is unanimous. People make their own fun by going outside, and going up. They go hiking.
From our flat, Midwestern rental, I wondered if we could become a Colorado family, and what that even meant. While other children surely grew up fishing and mudding and mountain biking, mine had mostly grown up Netflixing.
So would I be able to turn my suburban brood (ages 4, 6 and 9) into outdoor enthusiasts? I decided to give it my best shot.
We started at Garden of the Gods since I figured millions of visitors a year can’t be wrong. Did you know you can park right next to the astonishing, prehistoric rock formations of the Central Garden? We didn’t, and after a long slog across the “boring” path from the visitor center, nothing could compete with my older son’s annoyance. My little one begged to be carried. Back to the parking lot we trudged. Strike one.
When my mom flew in for a visit, we spent a day exploring Denver Museum of Nature & Science, marveling at the gems and minerals pulled from the earth and polished to luminescence. Then we ventured out to Red Rocks Park, where online reviews promised an easy, 1.5-mile hike very suitable for kids.
We started off hesitantly, trying not to reveal to the kids the extent of our navigation fears. But they galloped ahead, kicking up dust and jumping down stairs built into the trail. It was a glorious, blue-sky day, and my confidence grew as I saw them enjoying the walk, finding their own entertainment in the moment, in the movement.
Except now the sky was darkening, puffed-up clouds loomed closer than before and the temperature was dropping. And where were we? Now it felt like we’d been walking forever. How long should 1.5 miles take? Not this long. Were we even on the right path anymore? My mom and I looked at each other with dread and uncertainty as we urged the kids with false cheeriness to hurry up.
We made it back as the first notes of that night’s warm-up began at the amphitheater and the first raindrops began to fall. My daughter announced over and over again that she did the whole thing and hadn’t needed to be carried at all. “The whole hike!” we agreed enthusiastically. And, to each other, my mom and I joked, “All 15 miles of it.”
Later that month, we made another attempt at Garden of the Gods, this time armed with recommendations about where to park and where to hike. My boys bounded over the red earth of Siamese Twins Trail and clambered up the boulders to pose beside the giant hoodoos.
I carefully picked my route up and inched onto an outcropping, the sensation of height and sun and solitude filling me with gratitude — and a certain incredulity that there were no guardrails.
“Hiking is fun,” my oldest said later, not looking up from the couch as he dragged a finger across his tablet. My mouth almost fell open, but I played it cool and simply agreed.
With a success under my belt, we set out for Silver Cascade Falls in North Cheyenne Cañon Park. I picked this hike after googling “hikes for kids in Colorado Springs” while pumping gas; we’d run out of time to drive to my intended destination after we stopped at Target to buy whistles — my best effort to guard against separation or mountain lion attack.
As we wound our way into the park, the air seemed to turn grayer around us, the pavement rimmed in ice. The kids soon were complaining of car sickness as the road twisted and turned. We hopped out in the parking lot, and I looked down to see my daughter in a pair of water shoes and my older son in a pair of shorts. Who dressed these children? At least we had our whistles.
We walked up to the immediate reward of the waterfall gushing over the rocks. And despite the cold, we proceeded to hike up a trail that can only be described as solid ice. I found this terrifying. My kids found this hilarious. We gripped the handrail and slid our feet up bit by bit. We slipped, we yelped, we blew our whistles. We grinned when we made it to the top, and then the bottom.
“I think I did it,” I thought.
Not so fast, I soon learned.
We drove east one morning to Paint Mines Interpretive Park. Colorado Springs had been sunny and calm, but out in Calhan the cold wind whipped our hair and chapped our lips. Our feet were consumed by sucking mud. This was not fun.
“I hate hiking,” my older son muttered as we slogged our way back to the van.
“I hate hiking,” his little sister echoed, and then upped the ante: “I hate Colorado.”
This was bad. I thought recovery was possible, but with these kids you never know. A policy reversal could come quickly, or negotiations could drag out for months.
The next week we returned to Garden of the Gods to learn about raptors and reptiles. I ply the children with chocolate croissants at the visitor center and casually ask if anyone wants to hike. Miraculously, they agree.
I let the boys get out of sight as they scramble up Sleeping Giant wearing T-shirts in the warm sun. Not being able to see them makes me anxious. But I know that the thrill of hiking is in the challenge, in the uncertainty. I want them to feel like conquerors as they forge their own paths. I want them to look out over an expanse of earth and feel above it all, and part of everything.
Even more than adapting to Colorado life, I want them to see that the incline may be steep and the footing unsure, the wind may whip and the rain threaten, but they can keep going, one foot in front of the other.
And I hope they know their mom is only a whistle blow away, cheering them on.