Gather Around a Campfire for Family Time Outdoors

MT. DESERT ISLAND, Maine â€”  Pancakes never tasted so good, filled with plump, fresh blueberries and dripping in syrup.

Twelve-year-old Matt, all smiles as the designated breakfast chef, happily accepted lavish praise for his culinary achievement on the camp stove.

Plates empty and stomachs full, the adults lingered at the picnic tables in the morning chill over coffee, discussing the plan for the day. The kids raced off to inspect each other’s tents and toys.

Watching the group interact, it was hard to believe we had been strangers two days before.

Seven families, including 14 children ages 1 to 12, gathered here at a campground just outside Acadia National Park the last week in August. We came from California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Illinois and New York to share a weeklong family camping experience under the benevolent guidance of longtime Sierra Club leader Virginia Coombs and two helpers. Many of us had booked our trip the previous January, when this popular excursion usually fills up.

“This trip is an opportunity for you and your children to experience the outdoors and build some positive memories around nature,� Coombs told us the first night around the fire after we’d set up our tents (we had to bring our own gear) and eaten a spaghetti dinner.

A health care administrator in her 50s from Philadelphia, Coombs urged us to “find any way you can to empower the children and make them feel confident.�

The children, she promised, would motivate and entertain one another. The adults could be as candid as they liked “because you’ll never have to see any of these people again.�

We all laughed, looking around at the rumpled, disparate group. We were teachers, lawyers, nurses, homemakers, financial analysts, medical writers, executives and sales reps. Our ages ranged from 30 to Helen Yeisley, a 55-year-old grandmother from Teaneck, N.J., with her 5-year-old granddaughter, and George West, in his 60s and the father of a 3-year-old. “I wanted Samantha to know there’s more to travel than hotels,� Yeisley said.

Coombs and her two assistants, who all volunteer their time and take their own vacation to do it, certainly did all they could to make it a vacation for the rest of us.

Besides organizing hikes, visits to tide pools and beaches, and a trip to nearby Bar Harbor, they toted all the cooking gear, planned meals (including a lobster bake), shopped for groceries and chauffeured the group in two vans.

“Not having to deal with food was a huge draw for me,� said June Carter, a businesswoman from Oyster Bay, N.Y.

“Until now, I thought of camping as work, not a vacation,� said Deborah Rosen, a professor from the University of Rhode Island. Also important for the family’s happiness, she added, were the activities organized with their interests and abilities in mind.

One day, for example, we parked on top Cadillac Mountain and hiked down a steep trail, stopping for a picnic along the way with a drop-dead ocean view in front of us.

That same afternoon, we boarded a boat for a lobster tour on Somes Sound.

Before bed, we gathered around the campfire for ghost stories and s’mores (graham cracker sandwiches made with a toasted marshmallow and square of chocolate).

There was plenty of family time too. Matt and Reggie went off fishing and canoeing with their dad. Other families biked or swam.

The Sierra Club offers 40 trips designed for families, from a snorkeling program in the U.S. Virgin Islands to a raft adventure in Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado; from a Rocky Mountain hiking trip in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park to a Just for Grandparents and Grandchildren stay at a rustic Sierra mountain lodge in California. And like our trip, some fill up in January and February.

Prices vary depending on length and location of the trip. The weeklong Acadia Toddler Tromp costs $625 for adults and $425 for children, including meals and most activities. (For information, call the Sierra Club Outing Department, [415] 977-5630.)

Taking the Kids appears the first and third week of every month.