7 year olds don't make for good guides in the woods Part 1

I decided that this would be a good time to take my son on his first overnight hiking trip. I picked Nordhouse Dunes, even though I had never been there before, because I was told that it was a good spot for a first time backpacking trip. Seeing as how my son was only 7 at the time I thought easy would be best.

We arrived on the Friday before Memorial Day hoping to beat the holiday crowd that I knew would be arriving. when we got to the parking lot there were only 5 other cars there in a fairly large lot. We used the privy provided at the parking lot one last time (it would be cat holes for the rest of the trip) studied the map on the sign (I forgot to pack my map) put on our packs and headed in a Northerly direction on the trail. I wasn't worried about not having a map, the wilderness area is rather small bordered by Lake Michigan to the West, Ludington State Park to the South, A national Forest Campground to the North and a Road to the East, and only a couple of miles wide by long.

Within 15 minutes of starting off the boy was complaining of being tired, and bored. I should have expected this, but it was still frustrating. I was able to laugh it off for a while and try to encourage him and tell him "it's just around this next corner." After being passed by about 3 different groups that arrived after we did, I decided to make the trip interesting and let him lead the way for a while. Besides it was such a small area and we had to be close to Lake Michigan by now, he couldn't get us too terribly lost.

The boy decided he wanted to climb a steep dune up a side trail. So up we went. There wasn't much of a view from the top of the hill but the trail continued on toward what looked like some old campsites. We followed the trail for a while and pasted those sites because they were too small and not level enough for my tent and taste. Besides I had yet to see any water and we would need some from somewhere for dinner. Eventually the trail dwindled away and become nothing more than a game trail. We had gone to far to turn around now, and I kept reassuring myself that we had to run into the main trail eventually. So we continued to follow the game trails, when I could find them, I also figured that one of them would lead to water and then we would be able to find our way from there.