Let a Maine Guide Take Your Family Hiking

By Cathy Genthner Plaisted, registered Maine Guide

“In wildness, is the preservation of the world.”
–Henry David Thoreau

In the mid 19th century, when New England naturalist and writer Henry David Thoreau escaped to Walden Pond to “live simply and deliberately,” he found the cure for stress and other modern maladies. Nothing can get us centered and reconnected with one another more than a day or more spent hiking in the wilderness.

If you have never done so, Maine Guides can assist with a number of different hikes for all abilities and ages. Since they know the state, they know the best places to take you, away from the crowds and into wilderness bliss. Guides can help with the planning as well as packing for the trip. A guide can help you plan out a one-day or several-day hike, up a small mountain, around a glacier pond or across a portion of the Appalachian Trail. If you have young children, a guide can be especially helpful in choosing a hike that challenges but doesn’t overwhelm or exhaust kids. The first hike can have a lasting impression on children, depending on whether it was a positive or negative experience. As far as safety, Guides have been certified by the American Red Cross in basic first aid, as well as CPR. Guides have also passed a number of oral and written tests on map and compass and survival. Even in state parks, it is sometime easy to get off a trail if you’ve never been on it before. It’s also easy to overestimate your hiking ability or that of other hikers in your group. A guide can take you safely on a hike that is appropriate for your age and skill level.

Most importantly, a guide can point out natural wonders along the route, such as unique species of trees, birds and animal tracks, that can make your hike something to remember for the rest of your life.

Tags: Hiking

Posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
Filed under Guide Articles.