Rachel Verstraeten walks along the Beach Trail at Ricketts Glen State Park carrying her 3-week old daughter, Eloise, (a friend was pushing the empty stroller) while Verstraeten’s 4-year-old daughter, Hazel, walks along with Ricketts Glen environmental education specialist and expectant mom Rhiannon Summers
Similar activity planned for July 6 at Ricketts Glen State Park
Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Participants in the inaugural ‘Hike It Baby’ activity at Ricketts Glen State Park included Rachel Verstraeten with her 3-week-old daughter, Eloise, and 4-year-old daughter, Hazel; Alyssa Gochnauer with her 1-year-old son, Jacob, and his Aunt Amber, Nick Frycklund and his 2-year-old son, Peter, and hike leader and environmental education specialist Rhiannon Summers.
Environmental education specialist Rhiannon Summers, joined by young hikers Peter, 2, and Hazel, 4, peeks between segments of the split trunk of a large tree as Peter’s dad, Nick Frycklund of Hughesville, at left, prepares to take a photo.
Although at first he declined the offer with a firm “no,” 2-year-old Peter eventually accepted a ride from his dad, Nick Frycklund. Here environmental education specialist Rhiannon Summers helps adjust the child carrier as Alyssa Gochnauer looks on.
Hike leader and environmental education specialist Rhiannon Summers, at left, designed the ‘Hike It Baby’ adventure on the wide and shady Beach Trail specifically for expectant couples and families with babies. Older siblings were also welcome.
From the standpoint of 4-year-old Hazel from Bloomsburg, a recent “Hike It Baby” event at Ricketts Glen State Park was a chance to feel how soft moss is, to climb through a tree with a split trunk, and to talk about what spiders do when they catch a fly in a web, like the one the hikers saw strung between branches on a bush.
“They eat it,” Hazel correctly answered a question from hike leader and environmental education specialist Rhiannon Summers.
“That’s right!” Summers said. “Good job!”
The hike, which covered 1.6 miles and lasted almost 2 hours, was also a chance for Hazel to make an observation.
“You have a baby in your tummy,” she told Summers.
“Just like your mommy had your sister in her tummy,” Summers agreed.
Summers is expecting a baby in August, and that gave her the idea for a new program at the park, where she has led hikes, kayak excursions and all sorts of educational programs for the last several years.
“I thought, why not make it a program?” Summers said, explaining she designed “Hike It Baby,” a gentle walk on the flat terrain of the wide, stroller-friendly, mostly shady Beach Trail, specifically for “pregnant couples and families with babies.”
Older siblings, of course, were welcome to come along. And they’ll also be welcome at another “Hike It Baby” adventure, set for 3:30 to 5:30 Saturday, July 6. Participants are asked to register in advance at events.dcnr.pa.gov or by emailing rhsummers@pa.gov or by calling 570-477-7780.
The first “Hike It Baby” hike, held Wednesday morning, attracted Hazel’s mom, Rachel Verstraeten of Bloomsburg, who brought 3-week-old Eloise along with Hazel; Nick Frycklund of Hughesville with his son, Peter, who just turned 2, and Alyssa Gochnauer of Hughesville, who came with 1-year-old Jacob and his Aunt Amber.
“We needed to get out of the house,” Gochnauer said with a laugh as she pushed her son in a stroller.
Verstraeten also brought along a stroller for her newborn, and Frycklund had a child carrier strapped to his back in anticipation of Peter getting tired.
About .6 of a mile into the adventure, Frycklund started to lift the little boy into the carrier, but Peter uttered the word for which 2-year-olds are famous:
“No!”
At that moment it was too much fun to walk along with the bigger folks, and to follow Hazel in jumping over the occasional manhole cover.
But eventually Peter accepted a ride from his dad as the little group of explorers turned around and made their way back to their starting point near the beach house on the Lake Jean beach.
Verstraeten mentioned that when her 4-year-old — actually, Hazel was quick to point out, she’s 4 and 1/2 — was a baby the Covid pandemic had isolated a lot of people. She and Hazel spent a lot of time enjoying the outdoors, and she intends to give Eloise the same opportunities.
As you might expect Summers, who is planning to name her baby Ronan, is eager to introduce him to the natural world as well.
“I’ll definitely encourage hands-on exploring,” she said.