Elephant Mountain has become a family tradition with us. The first year that we hiked it, our sons were 1 1/2 and 3. I was the lucky one who carried the baby in a backpack carrier, while my husband had to keep picking up our 3 year old. You see we thought we were embarking on an easy half hour hike, the sort that we had often done before. Friends and their children had joined us, we had water and a few snacks so we started off ... we emerged hungry and exhausted 3 1/2 hours later but we had met the challenge and decided that it was a good one that would bear repetition.

Since then the mountain has become a yearly excursion with one or more other families. It has taken less and less time as those short wandering legs get longer and stick closer to the trail each year. The entrance is unmarked. You have to know where it is, which makes it more special. We start up the elephant's back, zig-zagging through shaded pine forest. There are wildflowers, fungi and a fascinating variety of moss and ferns. There are big rock piles that tempt the younger and more energetic members of the group to detour for brief climbing expeditions.

When we reach the elephant's rump, there is always a brief rest stop and then another climb up his back until we reach a broad flat rock with an extraordinary view down the valley behind him. That's the photo stop, after which the trail dips up and down along the curvature of the beast towards a rock scramble up the neck. The elephant's head makes some members of the group nervous. There we edge along a narrow trail with a sheer drop (and a wonderful view) on the left. Somewhere along here is the picnic lunch stop which lightens our day packs. Then for a more or less flat walk along the forehead and a long trek down the elephant's trunk.

Some years it rains and that makes the precipitous downhill trunk dangerous with its treacherous roots and slippery rocks - some of us end up covered in mud but the kids scramble down like mountain goats, glad to be near the end. There are tree trunks that we recall from year to year and sometimes we lose the path until someone glimpses orange ribbons ahead. Our legs and knees ache and our toes are bruised, but it's almost over and we are exhilerated.

It will be our tenth year on Elephant Mountain this time. Different families have joined us over the years and word of this trek has flown far, so that our neighbours' relatives from England participate when they visit. When it's over for another season, we check our time, just as we check the kids' heights every year. So far, we've hiked the elephant in less time on each attempt but now it's the parents who are starting to lag and the kids to speed ahead ... a sign of things to come? Still, it's a wonderful family habit, which we plan to maintain for as long as the kids' interest and adults' knees last.