Tips for getting kids to love the outdoors

Guides and trail etiquette

Flat-folding pocket guides, which are illustrated, durable and waterproof, will probably become your child’s treasured possessions, if you don’t point out they’re educational. A good general one for the United States is “Animal Tracks: A Folding Pocket Guide to the Tracks and Signs of Familiar North American Species.” Besides pictures of tracks, it includes a ruler and a scat identifier.

Other guide topics are plants, trees, wildflowers and birds. While many are available at websites such as Amazon, you will find some tailored to our region at local bookstores and park visitor centers. An ultrafine-point Sharpie works well for writing dates and locations on the guide next to the animal or track they saw, which turns it into a diary of sorts.

Visitor centers at many national parks and recreation areas offer a Junior Ranger Program, which will make any participating child an enthusiastic little expert on the specific area. All you need to do is pick up a booklet for each child, have them fill out the required activities for their age groups, and return it to the ranger on duty. If it is all filled out correctly, they can take a pledge and become the park’s newest Junior Rangers. Parents should call ahead to make sure park visitor centers are open during this time of COVID-19 restrictions.

Before you even set foot on the trail, give the kids a few pointers about trail etiquette. We do not run on trails. No yelling, throwing rocks or, especially, trying to feed wild animals. We stay on the path and take no shortcuts; the latter is especially important, for ours is delicate environment and fragile cryptobiotic soil can be found throughout our region. Tire marks, footprints and other such damage can take more than 100 years to heal.