For all the planning, prep, and experience of adventurous families, sometimes things just go completely awry and turn our best laid plans into misadventures. We can have a great meal plan, but forget all the food. We may have taken the family skiing hundreds of times, and still choose to drag sick kids out despite knowing maybe we shouldn’t. Plans might be thrown off by nature herself- floods, heat, and wildfires.
We’ve compiled a list of first-hand outdoor family misadventures told to you straight from our team and community to get you laughing and keep you inspired to keep trying even when things go south.
For all of our collective know-how in the TMM team and community, sometimes our best memories are made when things totally fall apart! We overestimate kid’s abilities. We underestimate weather. We miscommunicate. We just plain plan poorly. Gear fails…or gets completely forgotten.
The list goes on, and so do the adventures!
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When Nature Surprises Us
At Tales of a Mountain Mama, we truly believe that adventuring in all weather builds grit and resilience. Sometimes, though, nature has other plans and does a great job showing her power. And sometimes this leads to pretty epic misadventures.
Soaked in Canyonlands
From TMM Team Member Mary Burton:
We were bikepacking through Canyonlands National Park and it ended up dumping all the weather on us – rain, snow, wind, etc. We were so wet and cold we had to find a rock overhang and build an emergency fire to dry and warm up.
Childhood Night Hike
From TMM Community Member Anna Bosscher Ooms:
As a child, I remember a dark, rainy hike into a public-use cabin in the Upper Peninsula with my dad guiding us by lantern. A friend’s shoe got sucked off in the mud, but she didn’t realize she’d lost it, so we had to go back to find it. My brother was out in front and found himself knee-deep in a lake before he realized it wasn’t your typical puddle. That trip has been a cautionary tale I’ve used with my own kids.
Marmots or Murder?
From TMM Team Member Anna Kerlee:
When we went to an Alpine region, we encountered marmots for the first time. I thought someone was repeatedly getting murdered outside the tent only to learn what a marmot scream sounds like.
Wet, Cold, and Proud
From TMM Team Member Laura Tolbert:
Our youngest’s first backpacking trip we crossed a creek that was a little too deep for him to keep his balance. It was about 40°. We told him to stay put and we would help him, but he started to wobble, so just dove forward and swam across. I immediately stripped him down on the trail and put him in anything dry he had to wear, which was his pajamas and ironically, his rain jacket. He was not fazed at all, just proud of himself!
Bikepacking in High Water
From TMM Team Member Amanda Schmidt:
Last summer we decided to try more of a bikepacking rather than bike touring adventure. I discovered the Brown County Delight on bikepacking.com. We didn’t call the local bike shop ahead of time to ask about trail status, etc. We saw “high water” on the maps, but didn’t think it would be bad.
We waded a short distance, thought we had passed the “high water” danger, and kept going. We ended up swim-a-biking for about a mile in a flooded reservoir that the Army Corps had been waiting to drain to normal levels to avoid flooding downstream. We found out that the Ortleib panniers are NOT waterproof when children use them as swim floats. The two steel bikes were not happy. It eventually got over my head, so we bushwhacked along the side of the reservoir.
We finally got back on trail, but everyone and everything was soaking wet (only the tents stayed dry). I think the steel bikes were ok (at least, my husband hasn’t been complaining). But, if we had looked at the map for just five minutes, we would have seen an easy ride around instead of the swimming adventure. I ended up going into town to use a laundromat at 10 p.m. but my money was so wet that I had to get money from someone else to get change.
Everything dried out (fortunately). My husband used up nearly the entire liter of white gas trying to get the very wet Whisperlite stove to light to make dinner while I dried out our gear. The other two days of the trip were totally fun, but that day was kind of nuts. Really bad decision-making and tunnel vision on my part.
We haven’t done a bike tour yet this year, and the kids are kind of mad at me. They expect one annually now, even with the epic fail of last year.
Wildfire Woes
From TMM Team Member Mary Burton:
One year, we had to rent a U-Haul on a north Idaho bike trip because we woke up to wildfires/smoke and couldn’t breathe!
When Gear Fails or Gets Forgotten
Gear mishaps seem to provide our team and community with a lot of opportunities to decide just how dedicated they are to an adventure, and to get really resourceful with what they have on-hand.
Making Flip-Flops Hike-Worthy
From TMM Community Member Julie Layne:
We drove almost all 26.3 washboard miles down Hole-in-the-Rock Road on our way to Peekaboo and Spooky slot canyons before my oldest child realized she forgot her real shoes. Instead of bailing on the plan for the day she hiked in flip-flops held on by hair ties. I’m happy to report we had fun, despite some grumpy, frustrating moments. And she has never forgotten her shoes again.
Tent Gear Mismatch
From TMM Team Member Brad Burton:
We had a trip where we packed a tent and a fly that didn’t match each other. We were so far away from home and in a tiny town. We needed a lightweight option quick, so we ran to the local hardware store and bought a tarp and some Paracord and we had a sweet, light setup that fit our whole family for the week.
Making it Work
From TMM Community Member Miriam Roberts:
Wow, where to start? The time we brought the tent and forgot the poles or the time we hiked three miles out to a public use cabin in -10 degrees Fahrenheit while seven months pregnant, with our two year old only to realize we forgot my husband’s sleeping bag. Or the time we forgot the stove on a weeklong float on the Yukon where it rained the whole time?
Family’s First Bike Tour Fiasco
From TMM Team Member Amanda Schmidt:
On our first-ever bike tour with the kids, we didn’t have panniers (well, we had two small ones only). We just pulled the kid trailer with gear in it, but my husband’s bike couldn’t pull the trailer-the wheel popped off-so I had to pull it the entire way. We also ran out of fuel, and didn’t know that one of the campsites had no water. And that site was so buggy that I had to go to town to find a hardware store to buy bug spray and a citronella candle.
Staying Afloat
From TMM Team Member Mary Burton:
We were on a multi-day rafting trip through Gates of Lodore on the Green River, and our trailer broke on the way there. It burned a hole in our raft, but we repaired it and launched. Then on day two of four a tube in our raft popped and we tried to repair it, but no luck and had to have someone pumping it through the rest of the trip, rapids and all.
Baja Blunders
From TMM Team Member Mary Burton:
Biking through Baja, we lost our wallet and had to have cash wired to us to get home, on top of a million flat tires and getting slightly lost.
Tablecloth Baby Carrier
From TMM Team Member Kara Swanson:
We had a trip where I forgot the ErgoBaby Carrier that we were going to use for our hike, since our daughter wasn’t walking yet. I ended up taking a tablecloth from the vacation rental we were staying at and tying a knot in it to make a sling carrier. It worked great!
A Guided Break-In
From TMM Team Member Laura Tolbert:
We were camping with local friends, and realized when we arrived that we had left the connector hose for our camp stove at home, so we couldn’t attach the propane. Our friends hadn’t left our city yet, and we coached them on how to break in to our house and find the hose. The camping weekend was great!
No-Shoe Adventures
As the stories of misadventures started flowing in, it became clear that lots of us have forgotten one important piece of kid gear at least once: shoes!
From TMM Team Member Cece Romanyshyn:
We once scooped our kids out of bed before dawn to drive to an early-morning hot air balloon festival. Once we arrived, we realized we’d forgotten our three-year-old’s shoes. It was late September at high altitude in Colorado. Luckily, there was a pair of my thick winter socks buried in a bin in the car. My toddler tromped around the wet grass and got shoulder rides from dad all morning with the socks pulled up to his knees. For years, he talked about this as our “no-shoe adventure.”
Team Member Laura Tolbert shared: On another camping trip, we put the littlest ones in the car in their pajamas, then realized when we got there that we had left their shoes at home. Thank goodness for small-town Wal-mart—they had toddler hiking shoes, as well as some church boots I got for myself that I wore for years.
Team Member Kara Swanson shared her family’s no-shoe adventure too: We were two hours into our three hour drive to Whistler for a three day trip when we stopped to go to the bathroom and realized our 3- year-old had no shoes at all for the whole weekend. We stopped at the Wal-mart in Squamish and bought him a pair of cheap sandals for the weekend!
When We Overestimate Abilities
Making the Best of It
From TMM Team Member Anna Kerlee:
There was a trip where I thought my youngest was ready for bike-packing – she was not but she enjoyed our makeshift pull strap!
Childhood Skiing Trial
From TMM Team Member Laura Tolbert:
When I was a teenager, I went to Colorado for a synchronized swimming meet. A teammate and I decided to go skiing the morning of our afternoon competition. We had a great time on the bunny hills, and decided to try a green hill. I was so scared, I took off my skis and slowly walked down, and we were barely on time for our competition.
The next day, my face was so horribly burnt that I had to drop out of that day of competition- it was too painful to have water splashing me. Being from Indiana, it had never even crossed our minds that a cold, snowy day in March would require sunscreen! But we only sort of learned our lesson—we went again after the competition was over, before we went home. These are the only two times I’ve ever gone skiing.
An Intro to Alpine Touring
From TMM Team Member Amanda Schmidt:
One winter tried to take our kids to a glades area to backcountry ski when they were pretty young- probably seven and nine years old. They had done a tiny bit of alpine touring, but this was steeper terrain- more like black diamond + territory- and it was heavy, ‘mashed potato’ snow. They were on adapters to be able to go uphill, but still were learning not to fall all the time. I chose the longest route (I wanted more skiing!), and it was way too hard for everyone. But, they still love to backcountry ski! This past winter we did a 4,000 footer ski tour.
When Planning and Communication Falls Short
We get tunnel vision, we plan big adventures but forget about the smallest details, we assume our partner grabbed a certain piece of gear..and they assume we did. In short, we’re very very human!
Forgotten Food
From TMM Community Member Corey King:
We once packed up the family and traveled two hours to camp at a lake for two days. As we were setting up camp and it was getting late, I asked my wife what she packed for food. To which she responded, “I thought you took care of that?”
Yeah, we forgot to bring food.
Luckily we got in the habit of stashing Mountain House meals deep in our car.
Appalachian Trail Shoe Oversight
From TMM Team Member Laura Tolbert:
After our first day on the Appalachian Trail, we realized our youngest was wearing hiking shoes that were too small. So much for planning things well!
He had already developed blisters that were bothering him, so he hiked over our first notable mountain (Blood Mountain) in his Crocs.
Separated on the Appalachian Trail
From TMM Team Member Laura Tolbert:
Our 16-year-old was usually ahead of the rest of us on the Appalachian Trail. One time we were supposed to stop for lunch and resupply near a town, and she blew past the crossing. We went ahead and walked into town, but eventually my husband decided to go back to the trail and look for her. While he was gone, I got a call from an unknown number—it was her. She had hiked two or three more miles, figured out she missed it, ran into a local trail supporter who gave her a ride to the town, where she then asked another random resident if she could call me from their phone to see where we were eating lunch. My husband eventually came back too, hot and a little annoyed from his pointless search, but glad she was back with us!
Peanut Butter Plans
From TMM Team Member Jess Rhyner:
When my son was only nine months old, we were on a remote hike after a long drive, and hours from medical care. We weren’t thinking, and only took peanut butter for our lunch that day. We hadn’t yet tried peanut butter for him and didn’t know if he had an allergy. My brother is deathly allergic so it was a possibility. We took turns eating away from him and washing in the lake for fear of exposing him.
When Kid Life Happens
For all the joy, wonder, and connection that family adventures bring they also require a lot of grit, creativity, and strength. On family adventures, we’re often doing two hard things at the same time: the actual adventure, and parenting. Normal kid life happens! Babies scream, kids vomit, diapers overflow, teeth get knocked out, and heads get split open. We figure it out, and we can laugh about it later!
Whistle-Stop Backpacking
From TMM Community Member Miriam Roberts:
We had a backpacking trip with our two-year-old and seven-week-old over solstice weekend where the baby puked all night long in bear country. I would have packed up then and there, but we had taken a whistle stop train and then hiked into the site so we had to wait for the next train.
Headlamp Hike-Out
From TMM Team Member Anna Kerlee:
On one trip, I convinced myself that my kids weren’t really sick and we went backpacking anyway. They were up all night absolutely miserable to the point where we hiked out at 2 a.m. with all of our headlamps on.
Sleeping on Horeseback
From TMM Team Member Amanda Schmidt:
On our first camping trip, the kids rode horses while we hiked. It was a guided trek in a Tibetan area of western Sichuan, China. My daughter ended up being sick with something-altitude maybe, but she had a fever. She slept most of one day on her horse. One of the guides rode behind her to keep her from falling off.
Hammock Hijinx
From TMM Team Member Anna Kerlee:
We once had a kid knock out their tooth playing too hard in a hammock (knee to the face) and we had to establish that the tooth fairy does not come to backcountry sites.
Spring Break Saga
From TMM Team Member Amanda Schmidt:
We took the kids to a backcountry hut in March with ski access only and six or seven miles. They were four and six. We planned to carry our daughter in a sled, but she was too tippy, and the sled fell over constantly. It took us more than eight hours to get in (thank goodness for the long day). We ended up pulling her behind us on her skis tied up with a bunch of lash straps.
At one point, she fell off a low bridge into deep snow. During this chaos, my son went really far ahead, and fortunately he didn’t take a turn onto a different trail. In the middle of the night that night, my son woke up screaming because he had somehow gotten himself all wrapped up with a down jacket all over his face.
When we got down, we went and stayed at a cabin close to the road for two nights. The second night, my daughter fell out of a top bunk in the middle of the night and split open her chin. We had to carry her the quarter mile to the road, then I drove her to the hospital to get stitches. She still skied the next day! And, this was our first Spring break where we felt like the kids were finally fun. They loved the trip.
Drippy Deuter
From TMM Team Member Jami Rogers:
When my oldest was one-and-a-half years old, we did a trip to Glacier National Park. She was chauffeured all around in our Deuter Kid Comfort and had access to the water bladder hose. My husband was carrying her and I was following behind when I kept noticing drips of water on the ground. I thought the bladder hose was leaking. Turns out my daughter drank so much water that she flooded her diaper and every bounce in her seat she was squishing pee out the side of her diaper onto the ground. Since she was wearing shorts it just dripped right out, and thankfully she only needed quick trail-side diaper change.
Screaming in the Wind
From TMM Team Member Cece Romanyshyn:
We took our first overnight rafting trip with our first kid when he was nine months old, and he was the only child in the group. We had a great first day, but on our second day we had a really strong headwind. It felt like the wind was blowing all our boats back upriver. The adults were all completely silent, heads down, fighting this wind to barely move downriver. Our baby: screaming so loudly that it echoed off the canyon walls for at least an hour while I did my best to shelter him from the wind under a Crazy Creek chair propped over him while singing a made-up lullaby over and over.
Later, we laughed that he was just doing what we all wished we could have been doing.
From Misadventures to Memories
Whether you’re new to adventuring as a family, or a seasoned adventure parent, you’re bound to have plenty of mishaps and bloopers along the way. We’re right there with you!
Plan the meals, pack the gear, and make a perfect plan. And when your trip takes a completely different turn, you can laugh about it later, together!
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Outdoor Family Misadventures
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