Through My Cooked Lens

Camping with a 7 month old 🙂

Recently ~Mid-October 2024~ we went on our first camping adventure with our littlest man, Cooper. Let me just say that camping with a tiny person anywhere is an adventure I am sure. However, for this particular excursion we camped at Brushy Creek Recreation Area in the Bankhead National Forest. This is a favorite place of Patrick and I. For this particular trip we took my mom, step dad and two youngest siblings as well as my bonus son Hayden and Cooper. My mom and family had never been tent camping before so this was also a first adventure for them.

The thing about Brushy is that its primitive tent camping (no electrical outlets) and a “hole in the ground” bathhouse. Now there is a bath house down a walking path that is usually open from early spring until November, however, they had a pressure issue so it was locked which meant in addition to no power at our tent site, we also had no running water for toilets or showers. My mom had previously said this was a deal breaker prior to arriving, however, the task of putting up the tents and carting 4 children to the campground was daunting enough that she didn’t want us to have to take it all down load them up and go elsewhere. Patrick and I knew about the no electricity so we were prepared for that but we had hoped the bath house would be open. We have camped here before when it was not though, so we knew we just needed to have some handy baby wipes and germ-x (I know scrunchy mom nightmares are made of germ-x). You may be thinking, “Why do they love this place if it is so primitive?” and the answer is THE VIEW. This camp area is very close to the Sipsey Wilderness which is fondly called “the land of 1000 waterfalls”. Once a park ranger told us to walk/hike in any direction in this area for .5 miles and we’d see a waterfall.

Aside from the initial drama of the above situation, the trip was great. Cooper didn’t mind at all that there was no shower or running water for the toilet ;). The rest of us fared fine given that we were only staying two nights, and it wasn’t incredibly hot. While there we hiked to Kinlock shelter, Kinlock falls, Holmes Chapel falls, Turkey foot falls, and Mize Mill Falls. If you can’t tell my husband and I love waterfalls. For this hiking trip I wore Coop in my ergo baby carrier, or on my tush baby for the shorter hikes. It was fine because most of the trails I listed are short, though not all are “easy”. (In the future I plan to invest in a true hiking carrier, so if anyone has suggestions on their favorite that has low VOC emissions, I am all ears!) Anytime we take friends and family to Sipsey we love to take them to these spots because you can do many of them in a day and the sights are gorgeous.

Other places we really recommend are Sougahoagdee falls trail, Shangri La falls, and Coal mine falls. I could write forever about the Sipsey Wilderness, but alas that is all for now! Thanks for being here!