The point had actually been to walk the entire Amarmino in it’s full length of a whopping 30 km. The perfect little pseudo starter-thruhike for small kids. The trailhead reachable by metro, starting right next to DR Byen metro station, in the perfect contrast between modern urban capital and the last little remaining miniature wilderness in Copenhagen of Amager Fælled.
For anyone new to hiking, a thruhike is when you hike the entirety of a trail, in particular long trails over ~1000km. In a Danish context this proves difficult, as one of our longest trails Hærvejen comes in at about 500 km.
In our case, the mere 30 km proved insurmountable.
On flexibility and changing plans with kids
We had an extended weekend to hike in, and had planned to sleep two nights on the trail, but things dragged out, and when we had postponed the trip with an entire day, we decided to adjust to trip, and take the metro to Vestamager station on saturday instead, thus shortening the route by 10 km or so.
We decided to walk directly to Ottehøjvej Shelter & Campsite, which was about 3.5 km from the station. Apart from my partner, none of us were in particularly good shape, so hiking even just this short distance was a tad strenuous, but still totally doable.
Last minute changes like these can be disappointing to you and confusing for the kids, but can be integral to going through with the trip. Sure, it’s a different and less ambitious trip, but we still made it out.
Setting up camp with kids
The shelters and the surrounding campsites around Copenhagen are super popular, and while they’re generally well kept, it’s easy to see how popular they are, and that LNT (leave no trace) principles have yet to take proper root in casual camping culture with Denmark, as there was several pieces of trash around the site.
There were three other groups there, and chatty as I am, I ended up talking to all of them. One person had run the entire Amarmino recently. Another had biked from the other end of town to test out a new tent. Then there was also a group of students, all of them studying abroad.
The main problem with the site was the lack of water. In Denmark water sources are usually pretty close, so I’ve never gotten the hang of filtering water, which meant we had to walk and extra 2 km to fill up our water bottles. We did this by splitting up – I took care of Junior, while Dad hiked with Baby.
When we set up the tent, splitting up the tasks between sitting and camp chores again proved to be the most feasible division of labour. I walked around camp with Baby (who is by the way a small toddler by now), while Junior could help with putting up the tent – setting in stakes in soft ground and clicking the hooks of the inner mesh tent on the tent poles are particularly satisfying and easy tasks.
The site was super flat and big, so we where able to pick a spot not to close to other people. This is important both because I don’t want me or the kids to be kept up late, but also because I don’t want to disturb other people’s sleep.
A simple meal
We cooked pasta. Super simple. Then we crumbled up some tofu and fried it on the pan with some taco spices and soy sauce. We also had some parmasan, that I pseudo-grated with my knife.
On my last trip I sat way too long waiting for the water to boil, while the flame blew out several times from the strong wind gusts, so this time I had upgraded and brought a windshield. Or so I thought. The thing about titanium windshields is that they made to be a) super light and b) to catch wind. Guess what happened. Guess. The fancy windshield almost blew away multiple times during the whole cooking session. It was also too short to actually properly block any wind, but it did help a tiny bit. At least I like to think it did. Is there a trick I have missed? Please tell me your secrets of titanium wind shields in the comments.
We sat on our rain jackets in lieu of a picnic blanket, and Baby sat on Dad’s lap. The whole meal was super chaotic with both kids running off. Regrettably, it reflects dinner situations at home, and I still hope to improve the madro, dinner peace immensely. 2/5, much room for improvement.
The meal was nice though, and paired with some fresh greens that we brought, I think it was somewhat healthy.
Nighttime
Baby had a party, this was their time to shine. We brushed both the kids’ teeth. Junior was out after a while, but Baby kept the fun going. I’m usually a massive night owl, so while Dad tried to get Baby to sleep, I walked around the campsite and talked a bit to people. I thought I heard Baby cry, and when I walked back to the tent, I could hear Baby give off an excited shriek – mom’s coming back! I climbed in, and tried to get them to sleep. At 23:30 we broke a record for latest night ever, and they finally fell asleep.
But wait, there’s more.
Baby had been weaned some months ago, at the start of the year, and without really planning for it, we replaced nighttime nursing with milk bottles. This meant that baby woke up several time during the night seemingly anxious, so we made some baby bottles with a mixture of milk powder and water. Around sunrise, we ran out of milk powder, but at least Baby got some more sleep.
Baby nevertheless woke up at 4. I took a walk for a breather while Dad kept watch. The view was gorgeous, and I spotted a small herd of deer and a lone albino deer. Around 05:00 I returned and put in earplugs and slept a few more hours, so I wouldn’t be too sleep deprived later, an important consideration with the chronic conditions I have (more on those later).
A note about temperature: I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I think it must have been around 15°C. The Rumpl blanket proved a tad too cold for Junior, who could then snuggle under Dad’s zipped up sleeping bag.
Going home
The idea had been to cut the first day short, and then hike the rest of the trail over the next two days, camping for another night. However having had run out of milk and being extremely tired, we decided to cut the whole trip short. A little bit of hardships can be a learning experience, being miserable the whole time can not.
We copied the breakfast from the last trip, and we and the kids had whole grain wraps with crumble pålægschokolade in the tent. Quick and easy and requires almost no cleaning, although it’s far from the most nutritious.
We quickly broke camp, a skill I’m glad to have improved during the years. We’re usually more campers than hikers, but recently when I wake up in the morning, I just want to get going.
At home
I don’t consider the trip a failure by any means, but I do still hope to hike the entire trail with the kids before the year is over.
We came home, and I hung up the tent to dry on a designated rod to dry. Then we botched dinner, and I gave in and ordered burgers.
A big thank you to our fellow campers at Ottehøjevejen Shelter for offering space for us at their bonfires and for leaving an extra bottle of water for us, and a future thank you to our kids for their patience with the adventures we try to give them, and for sleeping at least a little bit.
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