This is a book dealing with a sub-class of hiking.
It is hiking with a child. it is a subclass of that, backpacking with a child.
It is still a subclass of even that, backpacking 2600 miles, successfully with a child during a single segment of the year, u a single trail.

The book describes the benefits of children's outdoor education and skills built up over years.
It describes the parent's planning and preparations of the child to proceed to such an elevated skill level needed. She was prepared well enough for her to be able to complete a single 2600 mile walking trip, and even to look forward to both the trip, and its finish, then be able to transition back into life back at school with friends and teachers.

That is quite an accomplishment worth sharing with others, so the mother wrote up the planning and experiences for others to use in bringing their own kids along hiking, at any age. Yes any age starts at less than three months and goes through high school if the child still wants to hike with his or her parents at that age.

Another aspect often described, is the joy and rewards of hiking as a family, from pre-school, through middle school.

There are chapters describing the gratitude the hikers felt towards volunteers, called trail angels who help hikers in several ways, such as providing water caches in the desert, providing transportation, showers, and food, free of charge at points along or very close to the trail, at arranging transportation to nearby towns for doctor visits, holding pre-sent packages for the hikers, and many other tasks.

The author describes the things they gained from the trip, such as a stronger belief in their own individual ability to handle difficult situations, and discomfort, ability to function as a group, more responsibility when needed, great friends made along the way, an alteration in their perceptions of what is important I life, and so on.

One often mentioned reservation of training a child to be as responsible as an adult, it that it could shorten those stress-free imaginative years of truly being a child when they will be forced into adulthood soon enough. This author notes that their child became able to normally act and think as a child but would automatically act as an adult in a difficulty or when in discomfort such as rain or being tires, then able to slip right back to being a kid again. So perhaps the reservation of not taking kids on long trips should be modified to simply not taking them prior to providing a build up of earlier years outdoors and a buildup of walking skills.

There are some 34 photos towards the front of the book, a mixture of mug shots on the trail with the child "Scrambler" and either parents, or friends encountered along the trail, and a few scenic. There are also 29 photos of Scramblers journal with its often illustrated paragraphs, inserted where those events took place.

The front few pages contain an excellent table of contents and a map key showing the entire trail and 34 of the more noteworthy stops and places they experienced.

In short, this a story by a mother of parents raising a daughter to a part of the family's outdoor activities, and then the story through both the mother and the daughters words, of taking a long hike as a family and succeeding in each ones goals and gaining more self assurance as well as enjoying the scenery and lifestyle along the trail.

Good book.
There are enough descriptions of trail life to keep the hiking person interested. There are plenty of interesting descriptions of the child's interaction with friends made on the trail, sometimes through the mothers words, sometimes through the child's words.(she kept an illustrated journal) ( )

Lots of people like to hike. Some people like to take it to an extreme, like Barbara Egbert and her family. She, with her husband, Gary, and their ten year old daughter, Mary, spent six months hiking the entire Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. All 2,650 miles of it. Mary became the youngest person to do so. Zero Days is a memoir of sorts about that adventure. I expected the story to be in chronological order, starting with Day one in April at the Mexico border and ending six months later at the Canadian border. Instead I found to be quasi-chronological with random sidetracking, even referring to previous hikes. For example, chapter three is all about the other hikers they met along the way. Chapter eight is all about the different towns they stopped in. Day 11 can be nestled with day 108 on the same page. Names aren't consistent either. Mary could be called Scrambler, her trail name, in the same sentence. Same with Captain Bligh (husband, Gary). Egbert sometimes refers to herself as Nellie Bly. Aside from the meandering, I thoroughly enjoyed Egbert's tales from the trails. I learned a great deal about what it takes to hike the great trails of the United States. ( )