Colorado Outdoor Bill of Rights for Kids!

Colorado Lt. Governor Barbara O’Brien recently announced the Colorado Outdoor Bill of Rights for kids. Help your children achieve their rights on an Avid4 Adventure Family Camping Trip. Her goal through this initiative is that ALL Colorado kids should have the opportunity to:

1. Camp out under the stars.
2. Follow a trail, ride it or walk it, and be respectful of everyone’s right to use the trail.
3. Play in a creek or river: fish, wade, paddle, or skip a stone.
4. Experience the wonders of Colorado’s four seasons: wildflowers, abundant sunshine, the changing aspen leaves, and fresh powder snow.
5. Visit a working farm or ranch.
6. Enjoy the view from the top of a mountain.
7. Identify Colorado’s official state wildlife and plants in their natural habitat.
8. Explore one of the dozens of local, state, and national parks in Colorado.
9. Play in the dirt and learn about the world from the ground up.
10. Plant a seed for other Colorado kids to enjoy in the future.

Avid4 Adventure is proud to support the Lt. Governor in her mission and encourage all parents, schools, organizations, and communities to help all children achieve their Colorado outdoor rights.

Sunny Winter Afternoons

Winter is a great opportunity to get the family together for an afternoon adventure in the sun and snow. Kids are home from school; nothing beats rounding them up, getting the snow gear on, grabbing the dog and taking an expedition to the local green space, park, or path. With Colorado’s sunny winter days, one does not need to bundle up like Randy from The Christmas Story to venture outside. A couple layers… snow pants, boots, jacket, gloves, and a hat are all that is needed for a great afternoon. Snowshoes, sleds, Yak-Tracks, and cross-country skis are entirely optional. Being outside and moving around is a great way to get away from the hustle and bustle of the season. One of my favorite spots to take the family is the local Gunbarrel green space path, which eventually spills out into an even bigger open space, Gunbarrel Hill. There are countless tracks, birds, and other wild life to spot. To learn more about animal tracking, plant identification, and shelter-building, check out the Avid4 Primitive Skills camp at the end of the summer. A couple of hours in the fresh air and sun is all that is needed to recharge your battery and help you and your family make the most of your time together during the season.

See you on the trail…

Matt Mowen is a teacher, studying to be a Counselor, and is expecting his first child in Spring 2010. Look for him back with Avid4 Adventure for another season this summer.

Mountain Biking with your Family

Looking for an activity that your whole family can do together? Mountain biking is a great option. Together, you can ride miles of trails and experience nature in a way you never have before. Many mountain bike trails in and around Boulder County offer amazing scenic viewpoints along the way where you and your family can stop, take in the breathtaking views, and enjoy a well-earned snack. Trails are ever-changing, which will keep the excitement factor high for both you and your kids. If your child cannot get enough with you, check out an Avid4 mountain biking intensive. Or, if your child wants to develop advanced skills in a one-day program, sign up for our brand new Extreme Adventures.

Mountain biking is also a fun, intense, full-body workout. While pedaling works out your heart and lungs, climbing, descending, and riding through rough terrain works out muscles in the legs, core, arms, and chest. For growing children especially, mountain biking is a great way to start an active, exciting, healthy lifestyle that can last a lifetime.

Gear and skills you will need: First, make sure everyone in your family has a mountain bike (with knobby tires) and a helmet. It’s especially important that your bikes are durable enough to handle trails. Any local bike shop should be able to help you ensure this. Other items that are important to have on a ride are enough water (one water pack per person is a good idea), food for when you get hungry, gloves, eye protection, and trail maps. When you get more involved and go on longer bike trails, it is important that you have the proper skills and tools to fix a breakdown. Bike shops around town offer maintenance classes to teach you bike repair fundamentals. Make sure to carry a multi-tool, air pump, spare tube, and patch kit in case of a flat tire or other glitch.

Getting ready and getting on the trail: If you or your children have never ridden off-road before, make sure you’re all comfortable with more bumpy terrain. You can start to do this by riding on grass. Once you’re comfortable with the feeling, try riding on gravel paths (like those at the end of the Boulder Creek Path). When you’re ready, you can then move up doubletrack dirt trails, like those at Marshall Mesa’s Community Ditch Trail. Then, slowly work your way up to easier singletrack dirt trails. Once your whole family is ready and feeling a little adventurous, there is a wide selection of more technical trails throughout Boulder County. Be aware that these trails may include obstacles such as rocks, roots, and tight switchback turns, so make sure everyone’s really ready before you go.

Wherever you go, make sure that mountain bikes are allowed on the trails that you choose. Also, on multi-use trails, make sure everyone in your family stays to the right of the trail, and yields to horses and hikers. Additionally, if you are going downhill, uphill mountain bikers have the right-of-way. For an idea of what trails are in the area, see below. You can also go to www.mtbr.com for listings and reviews of trails throughout the country with their skill levels. Local bike shops also have lots of information about trails and group rides.

Keeping your kids excited: When mountain biking with children, it’s important to start out small and not to push them to hard. Make sure, above all, that they’re having fun. If they are, they’re much more likely to purse the activity and keep going at it. Also, if you know the trail well and you know your kid can handle it, let him/her lead the way for a little bit!

Some local trails:
- Boulder Creek Path/Canyon Trail (paved/gravel)
- Bobolink Trail (mostly gravel)
- Marshall Mesa trail system (doubletrack/singletrack)
- Flatirons Vista (smooth singletrack)
- Betasso Preserve (technical singletrack)
- Heil Ranch (technical singletrack)
- Hall Ranch (technical singletrack)

World-class destinations within striking distance of Boulder include Moab, Fruita, Steamboat Springs, and Crested Butte. Check out an Avid4 Family Trip to any of these premier destinations.

Tsvi Bieler is a great new addition to the team at Avid4 Adventure. He is an avid mountain biker, snowboarder, and all-around outdoor enthusiast.

Skiing with your Kids

Winter is a great time to get outside and spend some time with your kids – not only does the snow give everything a surreal look, it makes for a lot of fun with snowball fights, building snow forts and (my favorite) skiing. Skiing is a great way to spend time with your kids exploring outside, getting exercise and, most importantly, having fun. Unfortunately, while skiing often becomes a child’s favorite winter pastime, just one or two bad experiences can ruin skiing for kids. Luckily, ski hills and resorts have become very child-friendly, making your job even easier. But, in case you’re not sure how to ski to success, here are a few tips.
1. Dress right. Nothing will ruin skiing faster than being wet and cold. Check out Kyle Barker’s tips on dressing for cold weather before you head out.
2. Ski with your kids. Ski schools are great, and a little non-parental instruction can go a long way. But after that hour-long lesson your children are going to want to show you what they learned and where they skied. This is your chance to turn skiing into a super-exciting thing to do with mom and dad instead of just a fun time with other kids.
3. Make a favorite run. Explore the mountain together, come up with a favorite run and name it. For example, I know that at my home hill, ski school kids (and some instructors) love to ski “The Ultimate”, a run that links together the Eyeball Forest, Wacky Weasel Way, Bird Brains and Rainbow Road (believe it or not, this entire run takes place in the ~600 feet of the beginner hill). If your hill doesn’t already have fun run names, make some up.
4. Don’t expect to spend the whole day on the slopes. Be ready to take lots of breaks, and don’t always expect your children to know when they need to stop. Bring a thermos of hot chocolate and lots of snacks, and take full advantage of the warm lodge. And remember, it’s always better to leave early with some extra energy and excitement for the next day on at the hill.
5. Try something new. There’s a good chance you’ll be spending a lot of time on the bunny hill, so mix it up and give yourself a challenge. If you’ve been skiing for your whole life, strap on a snowboard or some telemark gear. If you never managed to lock the heel, maybe it’s time you learned to ski for real. In addition to giving you something to work on and play with, your children are going to get a kick out of watching you take a few spills, and it’ll make learning and falling easier for them, too.
6. Ski by yourself. Everybody needs to have fun skiing, and just because your children can’t ride the big lift doesn’t mean you can’t. Take advantage of ski school or swap parent-duty so that you can take a couple fun runs for yourself.

Aaron Inoue has been working with children in nature for several years. In the summers he leads trips for Avid4 Adventure and in the winter he serves as ski patrol in Idaho.

Colorado’s Avid4 Adventure is the only carbon neutral day, resident & travel camp in America

Avid4 Adventure offers financial incentives for families to reduce their environmental impact

Boulder, CO. Avid4 Adventure, Colorado’s five-year-old outdoor adventure program, is taking responsibly for their carbon footprint by reducing their pollution of all types and paying carbon offsets for the waste they can’t reduce. Avid4 Adventure summer day camps introduce kids ages 5 and up to kayaking, rock climbing, canoeing, mountain biking, hiking, white water rafting and horseback riding.

“We looked at how much carbon our camps put into the atmosphere and then we figured out how we can reduce here, eliminate there and offset the rest,” says Dave Secunda, Program Director of Avid4 Adventure. “Now we are the only camp that we know of in America that is carbon neutral.”

Avid4 Adventure reduction efforts so far:

• Prevented the burning of 17 tons of coal, or the weight of 42.5 minivans
• Prevents 33 tons of CO2 emissions; that’s 238 male African elephants

Transportation produces the camp’s biggest carbon output, so Avid4 Adventure will offer discount coupons to families who carpool, take public transportation, bike or walk to camp. Conserving families can use the $20 per week coupon for dollars off other camp programs. For families that do drive to camp, Avid4 Adventure uses a portion of their payment to purchase carbon offsets. In addition, each staff member gets a RTD Ecopass, discounts on bikes and company vans for car pooling.

“This is an opportunity for families to reduce their kid’s summer activities impact on the environment and to learn about outdoor resources that are close to home when their child wants to go again to places where they went on camp days,” says Secunda. With rising gas prices this summer driving great distances for outdoor adventures will be expensive.

The goal of offsets and incentives to families is to make the company not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative.

“Avid4 Adventure is a pioneer as an environmental conscience summer camp because they try to understand their impact and take responsibility for it,” says Pete Chandler of Colorado’s Green Heart Institute. Chandler hopes to see other programs and schools follow Avid4 Adventure’s lead because he says, “They’re practicing what they preach.”

Avid4 Adventure inspires life-long active outdoor lifestyles and environmental stewardship through personal development experiences and family adventures, designed around the logistical needs of parents. Avid4 Adventure programs include summer camps, multi-day and family trips, and a school program that brings the outdoors to school, instead of bussing the kids to the outdoors. Visit www.avid4.com for more information.

Packing Waste Free Lunches for Kids at Camp & School

You know you live in the Front Range of Colorado if your child speaks of “sustainability,” “being green,” or how “eco-friendly” something is before (s)he enters Kindergarten. As Bob Dylan predicted years ago, “The times they are a changing,” and within our homes and communities we are beginning to realize that our lifestyle choices can not only influence our immediate families and friends, but the general welfare of the entire planet. As Avid4 Adventure strives to set the model for outdoor education companies by becoming completely carbon neutral in 2008 and teaching your kids the benefits of healthy, outdoor lifestyles, we will also ask for help in our mission by implementing a “Waste Free” policy for our multitude of day camps and summer programs.

As landfills overflow and incinerators pump contaminants into the air we breathe, many parents (Avid4 parents excluded, of course) are still taking the easy, careless approach to their children’s lunches. In fact, it is amazing at lunchtime discussions during Avid4's School Outdoor Education Intensives how amazed children become when they discover what their food labels mean and where their lunches are coming from. Although sending a child off with a Lunchables may be the most time efficient way to go, there are other costs involved that are often neglected. Environmental?… yes! Cost?… yes! Diet?… yes, again. I’m still searching for a parent that will argue the health benefits of the skittle-topped cold pizza that I saw a student chow last week.
Therefore, in the unfortunate age of genetically-modified vegetables, mad cow-infested school lunches, and rampant, wasteful consumerism, it is great to know that each day we can make a difference simply by packing waste free. Here are some easy steps to unite your child daily with his food and the environment, maximize the amount of money schools can spend on education by eliminating the need for excessive trash removal, and hopefully reduce the estimated 67 pounds of trash that each child is responsible for yearly:

• Pack food in re-usable containers that are inscribed with your child’s name.
• Use a re-fillable drink bottle.
• Use a cloth napkin instead of paper.
• Pack re-usable utensils.
• Elicit the help of your children. Even toddlers can assist the process by scooping chips into a Tupperware or filling bottles with water.
• Maximize leftovers. I’ve become a master of setting a portion for my next day’s lunch aside before I dive into dinner. That way, my lunch is packed the night before and eliminates the early morning madness.
• Encourage your children to bring home all leftovers in his or her lunch box to either re-use, compost, or properly dispose of.

Not only will adhering to these principles reduce carbon emissions and add
fuel to your compost piles, but it will teach your child the benefits of a waste-free lifestyle. I have seen this wisdom transfer to other facets of children’s lives… for example, don’t be surprised if you start hearing “games from the Salvation Army work as well as brand new games,” “wilderness experiences can occur at a local park and not just National Parks,” and maybe even, “I’d rather ride my bike than get in the car.” Packing waste-free lunches is an essential step in an ever-intensifying process to help your child internalize all of the words that (s)he is bombarded with and truly become “green, sustainable, and an eco-ambassador for his or her friends and family.”

Kyle Littman is the Camp Director for the Boulder Avid4 Adventure summer program. Although more passionate about your children than his lunchbox, he is excited about his cooking compost, sprouting seedlings, and nitrogen-rich soil content.

Moving Your Child Off Training Wheels: The Avid4 Adventure Progression

One of the earliest memories your son or daughter may have when looking back on his or her childhood is learning how to ride a 2-wheeler. Will you be remembered as the parent that wouldn’t let go? Or perhaps you’ll be of the hockey goalie mentality… pad your child up and let ‘em rip? My own parents’ legacy is that of the first bike lesson leading to the first emergency room visit (although, luckily being the 3rd son, my oldest brother was the victim). Regardless of the method chosen… no worries! We all heal from our childhood scars eventually (although my brother’s chin may claim differently) and likely develop a positive relationship with bicycles at some point during our lifetime.

Certainly I’m biased, but the Avid 4 Adventure method for teaching children how to ride bikes is certainly the best around. I have taught kids to ride in under ten minutes if the boy or girl is ready. However, before getting your kid’s helmet strapped on and his or her bike off the hook in the garage, make sure your child has a desire to learn. If she or he is still not ready, your choices are either to 1. wait or 2. take him or her to the park and subtly point out all of the other kids his or her age that have removed their training wheels. Before you know it, (s)he will be off and riding the trails in Boulder with the Avid 4 Mountain Bike Intensive.

The Progression:

1. Find a bike that seems to be too small for your child. Set the seat so that your son or daughter can easily touch his or her feet to the ground. If you have the proper tool (not essential) remove the pedals from the bicycle.
2. Have your child simply walk the bike back and forth in a straight line, and then in circles once he or she masters the previous skill.
3. Ideally, find a grassy slope with a slight decline. However, I have had lots of success on pavement or sidewalk, but make sure there is a slight decline to the learning area.
4. With your child on the seat, have them walk their feet and gently feel the motion of the wheels as they descend the hill. To keep their spirits up, assist them by bringing the bike back up the hill for them.
5. Next, your child is ready to see how long he or she can keep their feet up in the air and balance the bike as it descends the hill.
6. This time, before he or she descends, have your child give 3 push-offs with their feet before they lift their feet in the air to practice their balance and initiating momentum.
7. At this point, pedals become important, but only one at a time. See if your child can lift their feet to their pedals as they are cruising down the decline. Some kids are better off trying first one foot, and then the other.
8. By now, your child is ready to actually pedal. Encourage him or her to push off once, twice, three times (starting speed is critical to success!), lift their feet to the pedals, and then pedal forward. Oh yeah, make sure they have a firm understanding of what the term “forward” feels like on a bike.

You’ll be amazed on how quickly this process can be, or perhaps how not ready some kids are. Regardless, it’s important to remember that you should not move on to the next step until the previous one is mastered. Also, this method is 100% hands-off so that children develop a firm grasp on their own balance, as opposed to balance resulting from your hand on the back of the seat. In addition, a 15-minute lesson on Step #1 is a very successful primer for future success before jumping on a tag-a-long for a cruise down the Creek Path. Slow, incremental steps will lead to much greater success than a bad fall which inevitably leads to weeks of resistance.
And remember, when all else falls, call on us at Avid 4 (info@avid4.com) to do the dirty work for you. As I learned when teaching an X-girlfriend to ski, sometimes it’s not what you are saying, but instead who is saying it. Keep on pedaling!

Kyle Littman is an Avid 4 Adventure Camp Director and happily resides in Boulder. He has been car-free for nearly a decade and still claims that his #1 thing to do with kids is teach them how to ride a bike. If you have any questions, email Kyle at kyle@avid4.com.