What’s your first memory of camping? There’s a good chance that it’s a memory from your childhood, a camping trip with your family. It’s not lost on me that I am very lucky to tell you I had been camping in Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mono Lake, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon by the time I was 10 years old. My parents – my dad led the charge – took nine (nine!) kids to national parks for summer vacation every year. When we moved East, we eventually made it everywhere from Acadia to the Everglades. While ours was the typical drive-the-motor-home-to-the-sign-and-take-a-picture family, it was these camping beginnings that set me on my way to outdoor adventure sports in adulthood. When my dad and I took a trip to Alaska together, he lost 11 pounds without trying – I was an adult by then and insisted on actually mountain biking and hiking. I don’t need to tell you – though I have in many of these pages – the benefits of outdoor adventure sports. The importance of skills a young