When we moved to Utah about ten years ago now, I was firmly in the “there’s no great road trips in this state” camp. Hahahhaa! I’m laughing because anyone who is outdoorsy is probably gasping. I KNOW! I grew up in a picturesque beach town in Southern California where we had access to some of the best scenery and culture in the world. Then after moving to the East Coast, we could go anywhere within 4 hours and be entrenched in amazing history and charming towns. It’s taken me awhile to accept my fate–that is, that Utah is home to 5 national parks and 46 state parks, aka gorgeous natural scenery. Well, after going down to Bryce Canyon for spring break with the kids, I thought, maybe they’re onto something…and might as well do it in adorably cute and colorful hiking clothing and accessorories! Maybe it’s my new identity?
The cute and colorful hiking attire download
- Hiking socks
- Color blocked hiking shoes
- Layer jacket
- Ciao trucker cap
- lavendar ear buds
- Passionfruit bandana
- Color blocked hiking pants
- Color blocked hiking backpack
- Cobalt blue hiking shoes
Hiking with kids
Paul loves going to the national parks and I’ve been to a number of them since I was a kid, but this is the first time that we decided to risk it with kids. Jasper is now 6 and Felix is 3 and we thought we’d try it, especially since we inherited one of these hiking backbacks from a friend. We knew if anything went wrong at least we could stick them in a backpack.
Bryce Canyon
Now, as you know, I’m not a pants wearer. I ended up buying this boilersuit for my job at the White House and knew it was the best, the only option. I gathered up my old hiking boots from a job I had in Nepal (any longterm readers remember that one?!) where basically I had to hike up a mountain every day for two weeks to document the work of an architecture/building team (I’m realizing I never actually wrote much about it on here but it was back in 2011). And it was a doable hike, about 2.8 miles called the Navajo Loop Trail.
It’s pretty incredible because you start above the canyon and wind your way down into a scene of truly other worldly sculptures created by giants or something like that. They’re called hoodoos and with the red rock contrasted with the ponderosa pines, it’s quite the scene. Kodak moment after Kodak moment. Plus, we went the first week of April and it had just snowed so the crisp white snow was stunning.
We were quite concerned about the boys’ stamina but a combination of the backpack and at one point Paul with Jasper in the backpack AND Felix on his shoulders, taking breaks, we all somehow made it back up.
Once I got back I started to see what my options were for hiking attire and accessories if we were going to do this again and I’m pleased to say that there are some mighty cute ones. So, if you’re in the same boat, here’s what I found!
Do you have any tips for a very novice hiker in Utah? I’m all ears!