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Our Spotty Otter ambassadors @katereeves1983 can often be found climbing mountains in Snowdonia National Park! Kate has shared ten fantastic tips to help you get your kids climbing mountains too! 

Here in Snowdonia we are surrounded by mountains. Everywhere we look we can see another hill, another peak, another mountain top. Everywhere we drive I’m asked, “What’s that one?”, “Can we go up there?”. Their enthusiasm knows no bounds and their enjoyment of the outdoors and the views from Heaven’s door does wonders for them.

Lockdown 2020. We had just relocated from Ras al Khaimah, UAE back to the UK. We learnt the names of all the mountains we could see from our cottage and made a plan that, when we could, we would climb every one of them.

Tip One

Let the children plan the adventure. Get them excited about what they can see. What will it be like up there? Will there be birds? Animals? Will it be hard to walk? Is there any rock climbing? Which way shall we go? How far is it? And most importantly…Is there an ice cream shop at the bottom?! We decided Moel Siabod would be our first mountain, at a mere 872 metres high!

Tip Two

Check it out beforehand. We dropped the big one at school, drove over to the mountain, got the little one in the backpack and hiked. After 2.5 hours we were lost on boulders and not at the top. We then had to jog back down so we were back for school pickup! Back to the map to plan a new route, suitable for all of us, but still a win as we hadn’t had the big one with us so no disappointments and the little one slept most of the way in the backpack! We did find the ice cream shop though!

We let the big one choose a day for the big climb. She chose the weekend nearest her 5^th birthday. She said we had to have a big breakfast at Caffi Siabod first and then we’d be able to get to the top. The weather was looking ok, off we went, had breakfast and set off. We got to around 500 metres on our new route and it was going really well…the breakfast did the job. Unfortunately that’s as far as we got because the cloud came down and did not lift. We could see nothing above us and walkers coming down said it was like pea soup up to the top.

Tip Three

Talk about safety with the children and prepare to not get to the top. Before we left we talked about what might cause us to not get to the top. Top of the list was the weather. The big one sat down, had a snack, and decided that if the cloud was still there when she’d finished her snack we had to go back down and call that one the practice run!

Tip Four

SNACKS! Carry snacks. Lots. We tend to fill small pots with cucumber, grapes, cheese and crackers, crisps, apples, little oranges, and one chocolate treat each. Hot chocolate on a chilly day, and one sandwich each! Get the children to help make the picnic so that they know what’s in the bags. My youngest starts eating from the moment we take our first step on the trail but she knows that once it’s all gone, that’s it!

We like to make a healthy power snack to give those little legs an extra boost. I tested it out on my Squirrel Scouts first and they loved it so we did it at home too.

Melt together 1 tbsp of peanut butter, 2 tbsp coconut oil, and 2 tbsp honey. Mix in 2 handfuls of oats, 3 handfuls of Rice Crispies and some desiccated coconut if you like it. Roll into golf ball sized balls and chill. These are a good power snack for everyone and are easily adapted for everyone’s tastes. Try adding in dried fruit, chocolate chips, granola, swapping peanut butter for another nut butter. Anything goes!

Hiking mountains with kids would be much easier with a packhorse. Sadly these are few and far between in Snowdonia but we are lucky enough to have one – she’s called Mam! My backpack carries my waterproofs, the map, my phone, the emergency first aid card, a small quick dry towel, wipes, poop bags, plasters, the picnic, and everyone’s drinks! On our descent of Moel Siabod in Easter 2021, Dad was away working, so I had the backpack on my front and the then 3 year old on my back in my amazing Tula Toddler carrier. She had walked all the way up and we needed to do some tricky rock climbing so up she went on my back!

Tip Five

Give children their own backpack. Ours have had backpacks whenever they go walking. It usually contains a fold-up sit mat, hat, and snacks that get crushed in my bag such as crisps. They also like to have a water backpack in the summer with a drinking tube, but be prepared for a lot of stops if you use these!

Tip Six

Distract and encourage. When little legs get tired and the snacks are all gone, distraction is your best bet! Games, songs, counting…anything! We can make ‘I Spy’ last a long time and counting our footsteps gets us a very long way, especially as we have to do it in Welsh too! Jingle Bells and all its versions is always a hit, as are made up songs and rhymes.

Reassure the children of how well they’re doing and show them on the map or on an App where they are, how far they’ve been and how far is left to the top. Mine enjoy carrying the phone and watching the blue line tracking our progress. The youngest worked out that if she runs, the line grows more quickly!

Our children really enjoy giving Grandpa a call at the top and telling him where they are! We recently called from the top of Cnicht and he had no idea they were going up there that day. It turned out we could see where he was at the coast and he came and met them at the bottom for an ice cream!

Tip Seven

Give the children a reason to be out and about. We recently completed the Snowdonia Slate Trail, an 83 mile long walk around the historical slate areas of Snowdonia. We did it in smaller walks of up to 13km and the girls decided to raise for money for charity whilst we were doing it. The joy of completing a walk, posting it online and their total rocketing up, really boosted them and pushed them on to completing the trail. They raised £1000 for our two local mountain rescue teams!

Tip Eight

Know when to stop. There are some days that are just harder than others. For little people, emotions are big and hard to deal with. Life can be exhausting. New experiences can be too much to deal with. So, if at half a mile in, those little legs just won’t go any further, stop. Enjoy the view. Play some games. Sit in nature. Collect acorns, pine cones, seeds, flowers. Watch the clouds. Paddle in a stream. Swim in a lake. Forget the top, just enjoy being on the mountain.

Tip Nine

Wear the right kit. The weather changes in a flash. My oldest wears leggings and a t-shirt, a micro fleece and her Spotty Otter waterproof dungarees and jacket. She also takes a woolly hat. It’s like a game of the Hokey Cokey when you walk with her. She takes her hat off, she puts it on. She takes her coat off, she puts it on, off, on, off… The most important thing to our girls is being dry. They don’t mind wet feet in walking boots but wet pants is apparently not acceptable! Spotty Otter have somehow come up with amazing kit that we have fully tested up our mountains and the girls come down dry every single time. Me on the other hand…

Shop Spotty Otter Forest Leader Kit  here:

www.spottyotter.co.uk/collections/forest/forest-leader/

Tip Ten

And finally....don’t forget the promised ice cream at the bottom, whether you made it up to the top or not. If you do, you will never, and I mean Never, be forgiven!