Quick Tips: Visiting Utah National Parks With Kids

Utah is a state with the third highest number of national parks - five - which is an impressive number considering it's size compared with the other top contenders (California and Alaska).  Of the five parks in Utah, our family has now visited four of them during various weekend trips.  

Even though our visits were short, I did learn a few things about these parks, and I thought I would share a few quick tips about each.  While I'm mainly focusing on things that I wish I would have known before going, as an average hiker and parent of young kids - things I would have done better or differently - each and every one of these parks was gorgeous and well worth visiting!

(Perhaps I will eventually update this post once we have crossed the final park - Canyonlands - off our list.)

Zion National Park 

I was very excited to visit Zion National Park, since I've heard people rave about it as being the prettiest in Utah.  However, our visit was ill-timed, and I think my expectations were so different from reality that it was hard to adjust during our short visit.  Here is what I wish I would have known:

There is a shuttle that takes you into the park.  

Unlike most national parks we have visited, Zion is accessed mainly by a public shuttle system - first, one to take you from your parking to the Zion's entrance, then another shuttle to take you to various locations within the park.  At the time that we visited, cars were not allowed in the park at all unless you had a special permit for one of the more technical hikes, and there was very limited parking close to the park entrance.  Had we known this, we would have arrived much earlier in the day to ensure a good parking space, and to possibly avoid the shuttle to bring us to the park entrance altogether.  We ended up waiting in line to get on the park entrance shuttle for about an hour, in the sun, with five kids.  It took us about three hours total, between finding parking and the two shuttle rides, to finally get to the place where we wanted to hike.

It is best to research the parking situation before going.  

One of the reasons it took us so long to get to our hike is because we struggled with figuring out where we could park.  The road to Zion National Park leads through several canyon towns, and there are various places where there are hard-to-interpret "no parking" signs.  We ended up parking about 3/4 of a mile down the road from Springdale (the town around the entrance to Zion), in an area that was clearly allowed parking, and walking to the shuttle location.  Quick tip: There are NINE shuttle pickup locations along the route through Springdale, so I would recommend not stopping at the first one.  We waited in line for an hour at shuttle stop #9, the closest to our parking, just to discover once we were on the shuttle that there were multiple stops we could have walked to, a little further down the road, that had no line at all.  When we left, we also discovered that people had parked all along the road, even in front of the "no parking" signs, and it didn't appear that anyone had been given a ticket, so it was possible that we could have gotten away with parking closer.  Honestly, with the insanity of parking for Zion, even if we did get a ticket for parking closer in the wrong place, it may have been worth the $125 fine.

Try not to go on weekends that will be super busy (especially for your first trip).  

With the way this trip worked out, we ended up being on Zion on the Saturday before Memorial Day - possibly one of the busiest park days of the year. When we finally made it to our trail, there was literally a line of people walking both directions on the path, which made for a not-very-nature-filled walk.  Our experience would have been wonderfully better had we gone on a quieter weekend, so that's my top recommendation!

Take a walk near water.  

As hot as the day was, it was such a relief when we walked into the narrow side of the canyon via the River Walk, and we were able to finally sit down and relax next to aqua-blue water.  There were other people around, but that part of our day was quiet and beautiful.  Quick tip: Make sure you check with the rangers on whether it is safe to get into the water!  When we visited there was an algae bloom, and there was a toxin that could cause paralysis in young kids in the water, so they recommended we not let our kids in the water at all.  It was still a cool and pretty rest spot though, and we overall enjoyed the visit just because of the grandeur of the cliff walls in Zion!

Arches National Park

When we visited Arches we spent a whole weekend there, and Ic an say it is certainly worth spending more than one day there!  Arches is perhaps my favorite Utah national park, and our visit there was nearly perfect.  Here are my tips:

It's not a mistake to go there in summer, but bring more water than you think you need.  

When we visited in August (yes, in August), it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit!  Thankfully Arches is one of those national parks that you can drive through to get to all the trailheads, so our air-conditioned car was our home base.  However, we went through so many water bottles!  We ended up drinking all of our water and breaking into our stash of soda in the cooler after we ran out.  Every time we got back to the car we were dripping sweat.  After each return visit to the car, each of us downed a new bottled water or pop can.  I remember reading when we arrived that you needed about a gallon of water, per person, per three hours (or something ridiculous like that).  They were not exaggerating. If you go in the heat of summer, load your car up with water.

Plan more time than you think you need.  

This could be a tip for all of Utah's parks, but I especially wished we had more time at Arches. Even though we got a full 8-hour day there, we still didn't get to do all the trails I wanted.  In addition, the parking can get a little difficult in some of the smaller lots, so there are traffic delays to consider too. I wished we had another full day there!

Do some stargazing.  

Perhaps our best memory of Arches was heading back into the park in the evening - not only did we get some gorgeous photos in the evening light, but after the sun set we set ourselves up in an empty parking lot, grabbed some licorice, laid down on the still-warm sidewalk, and stared at the stars.  Arches is an International Dark Sky site, and the stargazing there was amazing.  My kids got to see their first meteor, which is something they still talk about.

Bryce Canyon National Park

If I'm ranking Utah's parks according to my own preferences, Bryce is right up there next to Arches! I loved that we could drive into this park, and the views were breathtaking.

Plan to walk somewhere, even with little kids.  

When we got to Bryce Canyon, we planned a walk along the rim, and then a short hike down into Queen's Garden.  The rim walk is very easy, and you'll get wider views than if you just drive to the lookout points - it's a smooth path, so it would even be easy with a stroller. Just make sure your little kids don't get too curious about the edge!  The Queen's Garden is a little tougher, but it was easy enough for my preschoolers and neat to get down into the canyon a little ways.  As we explored, I was also very impressed with the Navajo Loop trail.  It is a very windy trail that goes right down into the midst of the Canyon's hoodoos, the spiky rock formations.  It was a little beyond our hiking level right now, and I wished our kids were a little older so we could attempt it!  My second grader and I went down the Navajo trail a little way to the "window" in the canyon wall, but we lacked the amount of water we needed (and the hiking stamina, especially for the kids) to attempt going further.  Maybe next time.

Go to Mossy Cave and see the waterfall.  

This was a highlight of Bryce for us, and I think it would be a perfect trail with which to end the day.  To get to it, you have to go out of the park, through the nearby town of Bryce, and back into the park on another road, but the water is well worth the short drive.  My kids enjoyed wading in the river and trying to cross a "log bridge", and I was quite impressed with the waterfall.  One guy even walked up behind it!

Capitol Reef National Park

On the way home we made a very short stop at Capitol Reef Park.  I'm glad we did so we could see what it was about, but I learned a couple things.

Spend a whole day at Capitol Reef to get a worthwhile experience.  

We only had a couple hours to stop at this park on the way home, and we quickly discovered that we didn't have time to hike to any of the really interesting destinations.  It is a very pretty area, so it was still worthwhile to us to drive through part of it and say we had been there, but I wish we had planned in more time.  This is a park that you need several hours to explore properly.  Because of that, I have only one other "lesson learned" at this park...

If you want to see the arch, you'll need to hike to get to it.  

When we looked up brief information in maps and decided to make a detour to see Capitol Reef, I was under the impression that we could quickly see it's rather impressive arch (you can even walk on top of it!).  I tried to figure out if we had to hike to get to it, but couldn't find any information in the brochure.  We drove to the area on the map that was labeled with the arch, and saw a sign saying "Arch viewpoint".  Well, we looked high and low and searched all around the ground for some sort of trail before we finally spotted it very far off in the distance.  We then tried going on the arch trail for a bit to see if we could get a better view, before someone informed us that we would have to hike for an hour or two at least just to get a good look at it.  If we had known that, we might have planned a full day to see if we could make it there, but as I said, we only had two hours and I'm not sure the hike would even be friendly for small children.  A final tip for this section might be: do your research before you visit any national park with kids, and if you spontaneously decide to stop at one like we did - well, you'll have to take what you can get!

Overall, all our experiences at Utah's National Parks were pleasant and worthwhile to us, even when they didn't go quite as expected.  All of them (so far) are arid and hot landscapes, so water is a must, but many of the paths are smooth and easy for little feet.  We'd definitely visit any of these areas again if we get a chance to in the future, and Canyonlands is still on our list!

Have you been to any of these National Parks?  What tips would you add for families?