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Capitol Reef National Park with Kids

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After leaving Arches and Canyonlands in the Moab area we headed towards Capitol Reef National Park.  Following is our best tips for viewing Capitol Reef National Park with kids. 

Capitol Reef, the site of a geologic monocline (wrinkle in the earth), is a beautiful, unique, and frankly hard to visit park.  Situated in a remote part of central Utah, this park presents a public face that is very accessible even if the geologic aspects are not. 

The history of Capitol Reef is really interesting and it is a pretty unique National Park, so it was well worth the stop. We entered the park from the east and did not spend the night here but rather visited on the day we left Moab and headed towards Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.  As a result, we got a taste of the park but would like to return and spend some time outside the main area to see more of the monocline itself.

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The Best of Canyonlands National Park with Kids

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Our tips for visiting Canyonlands National Park with kids.

Canyonlands National Park with Kids

Canyonlands has 3 distinct areas, all of which have their own entrance roads and are, well…not close to each other.  We debated seeing the Needles section, which is accessed south of Moab, but instead chose Island in the Sky.  Island in the Sky is the most visited section, and we were not disappointed.  Island in the Sky is an easy section of Canyonlands National Park with kids as far as hikes are concerned because there really aren’t that many. The hikes they do have are either fairly short or too long or steep to consider doing with kids.

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The Best of Arches National Park with Kids

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Our best advice for hiking and viewing Arches National Park with kids.

Arches National Park with Kids

We recently returned home from a Spring Break trip to all of Utah’s National Parks – “The Mighty 5.”  It was an amazing trip, though a bit exhausting to try to fit it all into one week.  The kids were troopers as usual though!  We flew into Las Vegas and drove to the furthest parks first, which happened to be Arches and Canyonlands in the Moab area.  We spent our first day of hiking in Arches National Park because we were eager to get out and stretch the legs, and since Arches was closer it meant less car-time.

Whenever we travel west we like to try to stay on our home time-schedule to take advantage of getting to the parks early.  We drove straight to the hike we knew we wanted to do which was the famous Delicate Arch trail.  There are 2 different viewpoints for this arch (Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint, 100 yard walk, and Upper Delicate Arch Viewpoint, 0.5 mi. walk with stairs) as well as a longer hike right up to the arch.  We chose to do the longer hike right up to the arch and were glad we did!  

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3 Best Family Hikes in North Cascades National Park

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This post contains descriptions of our picks for the 3 best family hikes in North Cascades National Park.

3 best family hikes in North Cascades

The North Cascades are often called the American Alps, and for good reason! North Cascades National Park is a beautiful park and the mountains here are the most beautiful I’ve seen in all of our National Park travels.  Many of the trails were still closed when we visited this park in July, so we will include in this list all of the hikes we did and our take on each of them, since we weren’t able to do as many hikes in North Cascades as we did in the other ones. Don’t miss our complete itinerary for North Cascades National Park in this post.

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Olympic National Park: Best (and Worst) Short Family Hikes

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This post contains all the best (and worst) of our Olympic National Park short family hikes. Contains affiliate links.

Olympic National Park

Olympic National park is unique in that there is so much diversity within the park.  Because the park encompasses so much of the Olympic Peninsula navigating the park is done by driving along the perimeter of the park with roads heading in to specific sights.  To break up what would have been long drives, we ended up staying in 2 different areas for our stay in Olympic and these hikes are spread throughout the park.  Don’t miss our complete itinerary for Olympic National Park in this post.

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The Great Washington Road Trip – Days 9-14, North Cascades NP

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This post is the continuation of our great WA road trip, if you missed Days 1-4 and Days 5-8 catch up here and here.  This post contains our North Cascades National Park road trip Itinerary.

WA Road Trip Itinerary, North Cascades National Park road trip Itinerary. www.adventuringbeyond.com

Day 9 saw us headed to North Cascades National Park, staying in Mazama.  Following is our North Cascades National Park road trip itinerary.

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The Great Washington Road Trip – Days 5-8, Olympic National Park Road Trip Itinerary

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The adventure continues in our great WA road trip with days 5-8, if you missed days 1-4 catch up here. This post contains our Olympic National Park road trip itinerary. Post contains affiliate links.

WA Road Trip Itinerary, Olympic National Park. www.adventuringbeyond.comDay 5 saw us headed to Olympic National Park with a stay in La Push and later in Port Angeles. Olympic National Park is large and spread out, with many different areas to explore, so we felt it best to split our stay in this park into two different locations.

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The Great Washington Road Trip – Days 1-4, Mount Rainier Road Trip Itinerary

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This will be a series of posts containing our road trip itineraries for each park we visited in Washington state – Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades National Parks.  This post contains our Mount Rainier road trip itinerary.  Don’t miss days 5-8 in Olympic here and days 9-14 in North Cascades here. This post contains affiliate links.

Washington National Parks road trip itinerary

Washington State is one of the most diverse and beautiful states for adventurers.  From waterfalls to mountains, rainforests to tide pools, cities to wilderness, you see so much variety that you are all but guaranteed to find something to love!

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Best Mount Rainier National Park Family Day Hikes

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Our family’s top picks for Mount Rainier National Park family day hikes.  For our top picks for shorter hikes, visit this post.

Mount Rainier National Park family day hikes.

While there are quite a few options for Mount Rainier National Park family day hikes, we chose two of the best on our visit. Some of the ones we were thinking of hiking still had quite a bit of snow on the trail, which is always possible even into July depending on snowfall that year. Our top choices for day hikes in Mount Rainier were the Comet Falls Trail and Mt. Fremont Lookout.

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Best Mount Rainier National Park Short Family Hikes

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Mount Rainier National Park short family hikes

Our family recently visited Mount Rainier National Park and it is gorgeous, though I still think Glacier NP is my favorite.  We did some longer hikes, but there are many Mount Rainier National Park short family hikes for those who are not up for a longer hike.  Here’s a list of the shorter hikes we did, some are not really even a “hike.”

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