By Melissa Schorr, The Wall Street Journal - Friday, March 10, 2006
Memo to parents: Go take a hike. And take your babies, too.
A number of backpack-style baby carriers are aimed at the hiking set, and the latest have features like micro-adjustable straps, toy loops and insulated bottle holders. With parents making up nearly half of the nation's 75 million recreational hikers, according to the Outdoor Industry Association, sales of sports-related child carriers reached $10 million for the 12 months ending in July 2005.
Could we find one that wouldn't make us feel like a beast of burden? With spring around the corner, we ordered five framed carriers, holding kids as heavy as 50 pounds. Then we enlisted six families with children aged from 5 months to 2 1/2 years for a group hike. Our expert guide was Andrew Engelson, father of two and staff member of the nonprofit Washington Trails Association. During a four-mile jaunt through Cougar Mountain Park in Issaquah, Wash., our testers tried multiple packs, evaluating each on comfort, ease of use and features.
With all of our carriers, the baby rides behind the adult's shoulder blades, facing front. Each also had a kickstand that allowed the pack to be set on the ground with the baby still inside. While we found all of our models to be fairly comfortable -- thanks to padded shoulder straps and an adjustable fit around the waist, sternum and torso -- not all made for such happy trails.
Usually, you have to adjust the torso length with the pack off.
The $210 Sherpani Alpina Rumba lets you fine-tune the pack to your torso while you're wearing it. That sounded good, but after much experimentation, neither our expert nor two other test dads thought it made much difference. And although most people liked the natural-feeling fit, the rain hood was a challenge to assemble, and with the kickstand, the pack sat right on the ground, allowing the bottom to get muddy. The weight of the pack was a crucial factor -- but the lightest wasn't the best.
Although the $167 Tough Traveler Kid Carrier was only four pounds, the stripped-down nylon offered minimal padding for child or parent. Dad Brandon Morris had a hard time enjoying the mountain vistas as he wore it, saying that the aluminum frame was poking into his lower back.
The Kelty Pathfinder, for $190, weighed nearly eight pounds, yet it still felt light enough to most users. But every parent knows storage is everything, and this pack only had one main pocket. "If you're out for a stroll alone and don't have extra space for diapers or snacks, it might limit how far you go," Mr. Engelson noted. He also felt that the carrier's relatively high seat -- here, baby sits far back from the head, while the others keep your kid closer to the shoulders -- created more strain on the hips.
Weighing in at 8 1/2 pounds, the Evenflo Snugli Cross Terrain was our heaviest. Still, most of the testers (and, from the looks of it, all of our babies) found it to be very comfortable. Some useful extras were packed into that weight: insulated bottle packs, a cellphone pocket, rain hood and zip-off pack. At $87, about half the price of the other four, it's our Best Value.
The lighter Deuter Kid Comfort II ($179) won unanimous approval. "I didn't know I was wearing it," dad James Kolenski said of the nearly six-pound pack after the hike was over. The carrier also had a well-designed kickstand, vents to help stay cool and lots of storage room. And our younger testers? Baby Megan fell asleep within minutes, her head pressing gently into the padded backrest. As mom Suzanne Kolenski concluded, "She's obviously cozy in there." If only they made one big enough to hold adults, too. It's our Best Overall.
