Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon
 Third edition of the only Oregon hiking book especially for kids and families (formerly Best Hikes with Children in Western and Central Oregon). Choose among 100 of the best hikes in Oregon for people of any age, but especially young hikers. They're fun, low-stress trails with built-in rewards to help keep kids interested and motivated. You'll find directions for ...
- Climbing up mountains and down rivers.
- Walking behind waterfalls and across sand dunes.
- Exploring an underground lava tube or an old mining camp.
- Hiking on a hill of obsidian or a field of lava.
These are just a few of the highlights families (and anyone looking for a fun hike) will find in this guidebook from The Mountaineers Books. Each outing highlights points of interest and opportunities for learning about nature on the trail.
There are many great books out there to help parents find, fun, age-appropriate nature experiences, but we've settled on Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon.
-- Metro Parent (read more)
 Big fun for little feet in Oregon
· 100 hikes suitable for families, accessible from urban areas
· Special emphasis on trail highlights with child appeal
· Hikes range from less than 1 mile to nearly 6 miles round trip, with optional turn around points for tired feet
· Trails rated easy to challenging for children
· Each outing highlights points of interest and opportunities for learning about nature on the trail.
 Accustomed as many kids are to the instant gratification of electronic games, it's not always easy to get children out the door and onto a trail these days. (As a fourth-grader told Richard Louv, author of the eye-opening Last Child in the Woods, indoor play is more fun because "that's where all the electrical outlets are.") Some kids love the prospect of an hour or a day on a trail, but more reluctant young hikers will do their best to discourage you. Add to their whining the gear gathering, the arrangements required to bring friends along, the driving, the logistics, and it’s easy to get discouraged.
So why do we drive sometimes an hour or more to spend not much more than an hour on a trail? It gets us out of the city. It gives us time together. It helps us stay healthy (with the increase in obesity among youth, the current generation of children may end up with a shorter average lifespan than their parents). Physicists have found that simply viewing the "fractal patterns" found in clouds and tree branches and other patterns in nature--even just in our peripheral vision--measurably lowers anxiety levels. And when the weather takes an unexpected turn and we wind up hunkering down, slogging uncomfortably in the rain for an hour, we learn that we are stronger and more capable than we thought, that our sense of humor needn't disappear when the going gets tough. And when we're back home, we have a great story to tell.
 If a child is to keep alive his inborn
sense of wonder … he needs the
companionship of at least
one adult who can share it,
rediscovering with him the joy,
excitement, and mystery
of the world we live in.
-- Rachel Louise Carson, from
The Sense of Wonder
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Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon
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