Sharon

Unlike Bryce Canyon, where your skirt the rim of a deep canyon before descending from a level ground, driving through Canyonlands made me question where I was in relation to everything else. The hike (more like a walk, just 1 mile and flat) to Grand View Point was one of the most unique trails I’ve ever been on. The trail felt more like walking 10 feet away from an open manhole cover: if you keep a reasonably safe distance you won’t feel any risk near it. It felt a little crazy to attempt a hiking trip with a 3-year-old and 1-year-old, but Utah’s parks are so full of natural attractions that we rarely felt like we were missing anything.

We could have added 2 miles to the hike by leaving from the Delicate Arch Viewpoint parking lot but that seemed not very fun. We knew the primitive trail portion of the hike might pose some difficulty with kids on our backs, but with seven arches visible along the hike we thought we would give it a try and see how far we could get. The trail was quite crowded near Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch, and this crowd continued along the trail up to Landscape Arch, where the fenced and well-kept trail ended. About a mile into the loop we came upon this impressive view: This spot served as our endpoint of the hike and we doubled back along the trail to the car.

We took the Highway 12 Scenic Byway from Bryce Canyon National Park to Moab, which was our stay when visiting Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park as part of our hiking trip through Utah. Facing a greater than 4 hour drive from Bryce to Moab, we were enticed to follow Google Maps’ advice and skip the Highway 12 detour, which would have shaved off about 30 minutes from our travel time

Kodachrome Basin was the 3rd stop on our hiking trip through Utah’s best parks with kids. Kodachrome Basin was the 3rd stop on our hiking trip through Utah’s best parks with kids