Keep Going: a Short Film of Twin 7 Year Olds' Camping and Climbing Trip up their First Snow Couloir

My wife, Kristina, and I were once sitting and watching a documentary. This was before kids, when she and I could sit and watch something.

In the documentary, there was a scene with a family on a rather primitive island. The island had no cereal crops, and the food that was available was difficult to process and had to be done by hand. So, getting food prepared was a job that involved the whole family; it was just took that much work. The youngest member of the family was a three-year-old girl. One of her jobs was to take a small machete and husk their particular crop, chopping off the outer, bark-like material to get something closer to the edible innards of this (I think it was a) fruit.

My wife and I sat in awe of what kids can do.

Now, we didn’t think that was a particular good idea in our context, to hand a child a giant knife and have him or her slash things with it, but in the right context the child became proficient. What struck us is just how much a child can do if we give them the education, exposure, and experience.

Fast forward almost a decade later, and she and I have twin seven-year-olds who have been receiving an education in alpine climbing, have exposure to those who also do this stuff, and have been handed a steady diet of new experiences. So, after a winter of ice climbing, on top-rope, in crampons modified for their small feet, I took them on their first snow climb to the summit of a peak.

They had seen photos of me snow climbing a lot; I prefer high altitude, snowy conditions. They were wanting to know when they could give it a shot, and all I could say was, “when snow conditions are right.” Well, the conditions became right after a few weeks of late-May snow. You wouldn’t want to be out in that new snow, due to renewed avalanche danger. But after the new stuff melted and compacted, it was a different story.

This was a real coulior - or snow-filled gully. It’s used by ski mountaineers in winter and spring as a relatively quick lap near an accessible trailhead. It’s a true, moderate, climb.

My kids can’t yet do a nine-mile round trip carrying all the gear (and weight) required to do this thing in a day. This is especially true because you want to be on snow early, before it turns too soft to support your weight. Post-holing up several hundred feet of snow is not a fund activity.

So, we turned it into an overnight trip. I brought all the stuff for camp, sparing any added weight for them, and we headed in on a late-afternoon, after any thunderstorms had already blown through.

Like the girl with the machete, I was in awe of what I saw. The boys were outside their comfort zone, on the steepest snow they had ever been on, but were able to focus in and accomplish their goal.