Canyonlands National Park with Kids

If you love hiking along the edges of cliffs, I highly recommend visiting the Island in the Sky. As a family, we do some pretty crazy hikes, but this park got my heart pumping, and it wasn't always because of the hiking. Every hike began, ended, or went along the edge of a high canyon. (Hence the name Canyonlands) So, if watching your kids run along ledges won't give you a heart attack, here's the few hikes we did with our kids ages 12-4.

Mesa Arch is more of a walk than a hike, only about a 1/3 a mile.  It has amazing views.

Our rock-climbing child had a hard time staying away from the edge, so our stay here was short lived.

Next, we headed to Whale Rock. The trail is mostly a giant steep rock. Although it's called Whale Rock, our two oldest spent most of the hike trying to determine if it looked more like a sleeping T-rex or a Spinosaurus.

Optional rock climb

My preschooler saw the number 3 in this rock

Always more ledges

Whale Rock has some great views. 

Island in the Sky has some of the most meandering roads I have ever been on.

We took that meandering road to our next hike: Upheaval Dome.  We only went to the first look out point.

By this point, our kids were pretty tired. We told them one more easy hike. Or so we thought it would be an easy 1.5 miles to Aztec Butte. What we didn't realize was to get to the ruin, you climb to the top of the butte.

This picture doesn't do the
steepness justice.

Still going up

The trail is up and over the top of those rocks.

The views are amazing though.

Before hiking to the top of the butte, we took the short side trail to the granaries, too. These also required a scramble down a small ledge in order to view.

Here's the place where you climb down. 

Off to the next adventure

In all, we spent about 4 hours in the park. The kids were pretty worn out by then, but we had a great time. Someday- when they can stay away from the edges of the cliffs better- it would be fun to hike closer to the rim (White Rim and Grandview point trails).

However, I think by far, our favorite kid friendly hikes in Canyonlands are in the Needles district. Cave Springs has a few fun ladders for the kids to climb and most of the trails there have a lot less drop offs. You can read about out what we did in the Needles District here.

Until next time