A couple of months ago (yes, I’m behind on my writing), I was about to go in for knee surgery. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be off my feet so I wanted to sneak in a quick hike while the weather was so nice. While we couldn’t hit a mountain or anything like that, I found a new trail near our house around a lake and the family set off.

Outdoor activities like this are important and fun time for a family. The opportunity to teach about fitness and the outdoors alone make it worthwhile. Plus, as someone who grew up hiking and camping I really want to pass this onto my kids and it is a free activity that anyone can do.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to try out a couple of Crumpler backpacks that the company sent me to review. They sent me a blue Baby Anchovy for Dylan and a pink Baby Pea for Emily. Having no personal experience with Crumpler outside of their yearly samples in the SXSW Gift Bags, but knowing that many of my friends swear by them I was curious to see how they performed and what the kids thought of them.

The hike was great and my knee held up quite well. Since it was mainly flat it wasn’t challenging to any of us and the trees just starting to bloom and the breeze coming off the lake kept it chilly enough to minimize the complaining. If you’ve never taken your kids for a hike you’ll realize that they enjoy complaining about the heat, the hardness and being bored more than anything else. Start easy and someplace with a lot of things to look at and discover. On this trip we discovered an old abandoned stone fireplace and chimney that lead to a lot of fun theories of who might have used it.

Both backpacks are smaller than I would have imagined with the Pea being almost too small to carry anything of value. My daughter did fit in a water bottle and a couple of snacks, but anything more and it would have been too full. The good thing about this though is that even your youngest child could wear this and carry some of their own items to get them use to carrying their own share of the needed things for the hike.

The Anchovy is small as well, but has easily three times the space of the Pea. Dylan may of had more room, but this is way to small to be a school backpack for anything other than a couple of notebooks and maybe a lunch. Even then it would be a tight fit for sure. I’m sure it would work fine for a child up to first or second grade, but after that might not be big enough to carry everything they need.

That being said, the quality of both bags is rock solid. I LOVED how the straps on the Anchovy are one big piece of the same fabric as the actual bag. I had never seen a design like this before and since the bags are not cheap ($50-$60) I was happy to see such great design and craftsmanship. This alone made me check out the whole product line in more depth.

By giving each kid a pack of their own it let them determine when they needed a break. They didn’t need to ask me to get out a water bottle or a small snack. They would just sit down and get it out themselves. One important part of hiking is that each person needs to learn their own pace and I believe this helps children get use to it. Of course their pace sometimes can be too slow and you have to nudge them a bit, but that is also part of the fun of family hiking. (should I have put fun in quotes? *grin*)

In the end we had a great day in the woods enjoying nature and the backpacks performed perfectly. Since that day the Anchovy has been used many times for different activities, but the Pea has been shelved as just being too small for this age. Younger toddlers it would be perfect for, but mine are a bit too old for it even though both found it very cool looking.

Thanks Crumpler for letting us test these out and share our honest opinions with you and our readers. An extra thanks for giving me also a great reason to get the whole family outside.

Disclosure: http://Cmp.ly/2