Hey friends! We are the Bennett family, excited to be part of the Trek blog and prepping for the AT. Our plan is to head SOBO starting June 19. My husband, our four kids (ages 17, 15, 13, and 10), and our trail dog, Muir, hiked the PCT last year. Our trail names were Kidnapper (Adam), Wildflower (Mindi), Amazon (Sierra), Honey Badger (Kaia), Gancho (Tristan), and Ladybug (Ruby). Everyone is currently open to taking on a different trail name on the AT if the opportunity presents itself (some names were awarded outside the unwritten code of trail name bequeathing). We currently reside in southwest Washington. This will be our first big adventure on the East Coast and we are so excited!

But why would you hike with all those kids?

There are a plethora of reasons we are hiking as a family:

*so our kids will know they can do hard things

*to escape screens

*get some grit

*family time to the extreme, to name a few

Our big goal is the Triple Crown. At some point in 2013, my husband said to me, “I want us to start preparing for long-distance backpacking as a family. We should do the Triple Crown!” I had no idea what the Triple Crown was, and had never heard of the PCT, AT, or CDT. Nevertheless, it wasn’t hard to sell me on the idea. Our kids spending months on end with their parents in the great outdoors sounded like the best possible plan. As our kids have gotten older it feels like having only 18 summers or so with them under our roof isn’t enough. We timed it so that the last three summers that our oldest would be with us (before shoving off to college) could be spent together on the trail. Since we can’t do these trails in three months, our plan wouldn’t fit into the traditional public school schedule. With the help of many awesome teachers, we pulled off a combo of homeschool/online/public school and finished 9 months of school in 5 months. Then switched gears to “trail school”.

One trail under our belt

While hiking the PCT, we got a lot of comments about what a “logistical nightmare” a family of our size must be for a thru-hike. Not knowing any better, we just dove in, experimenting as we went along, and came out all the wiser. We are excited to apply this knowledge to the AT (although we have heard it is a whole different animal), and get the kids more involved in the prep work this time. We know the odds are not in our favor, statistically speaking, but the joy is in the journey (with a hefty serving of Type 2 fun, we’ve learned). See you on the trail!