Emily’s introduction to the hike started with getting to run along the rim and look out at the view, then she found dirt to play in. We were combined two different trails to make up our hike. We hiked down the portion of the Navajo Loop Trail that goes through Wall Street and back up Queens Garden Trail. The complete length of our variation of the hike was about 3 miles. This was pretty ambitious for us given that we hadn’t hiked this far carrying Emily before. We wished that we could have added a third trail to our hike, but we knew better given what we had to carry and the patience of our children. The beautiful day was such encouragement for doing the hike. It was warm, sunny, and the sky was a gorgeous color against the red rock formations.

Emily was shy at first about talking to the other hikers when they spoke to her. On the whole trip we didn’t see very many other children for her to talk to and play with. She was more than happy to talk to her parents though. Emily has done some riding in the backpack before and settled in pretty quickly. Robby seemed to adjust to a new center of gravity pretty quickly hiking into the canyon.

Once we got to the bottom of the canyon, we allowed her to get out of the backpack and do a little of the hike herself. This definitely slowed the hike down some, but she had a blast. She collected sticks, found more dirt, saw squirrels, ran a bit, learned the arm swinging game with her parents, and got more comfortable talking to the other hikers. She started announcing to the hikers that ‘I hike’. She was very proud! It was pretty funny. She enjoyed the arm swinging game a lot. While it was a bit tiring for us to hike, count, swing, and repeat over and over again, it allowed us to cover some distance pretty quickly with her.

At the beginning of the ascent back out, we put her back in the backpack and picked up the pace. We found a cool tunnel to stop and play in. During the climb out, which was less steep than the hike down, but longer of a hike, we swapped kids. I had the privilege of carrying Emily out. I really felt like the turtle in the turtle and hare story. I just kept hiking slow and steady and we got out of the canyon. Emily was rewarded for being good by getting to run again along the rim edge as we walked back to our car and had a lunch snack.