Bryce Canyon Trip, Tate's First Campout!

This post is several weeks late, but I guess having a baby will do that to you!  I am so behind on my blog posting! I have done tons of little hikes this spring/summer while I was pregnant with Tate and while she was a little tiny tot.  Just short little hikes like the Y and rock canyon.  So I guess I will have to skip those little hikes and skip to the big adventures we have had recently.   Several weeks ago we took Tate on her first hiking/camping trip down to Southern Utah.  We chose Bryce Canyon because we wanted to enjoy the greatness of red rock but still be at a high elevation for a comfortably cool temperature camping experience.  Erik and I had only been to Bryce one time previously and that was in the winter when we had snow shoed all of the trails.

Auntie Lyndee, who is living in Utah for the summer, joined us.  On day one we set up camp and then did the Queens Garden/Navaho loop hike.  It was incredible! We got to try out our new baby carrier that we had bought for Tate. 

She loves the carrier and basically sleeps the entire time she is in it.  Our favorite part of the hike was a narrow canyon section called Wall Street.

After the hike we headed up to Bryce Point where we watched the sunset and saw a massive rattlesnake right off of the trail.

On day 2  some of the girls that I train from the tennis team came down to join us on a hike called Peekaboo Loop.  It was an amazing 6.5 miler.

Group Shot.  In the afternoon we parted ways with the tennis girls.  They wanted to see other parts of the park and we wanted to take Lyndee and Tate to their first slot canyon.  So we drove a short ways to Escalante NM to a canyon called Willis Creek.  It is an easy, non-technical canyon that is very family friendly so we felt okay taking the baby in there. 

We enjoyed some great camp food and loved our nice shaded cam ground. . . or at least we thought it was shaded! Tate had a bad sunburn and we know we covered her up head to toe whenever we were in the sun.  The only thing we can figure is that she was burned in camp when we were in the shade of trees.  I guess a lot more sun gets through than you realize. . . parents of the year award!

Poor little wiggles! At least she had Auntie Lyndee to take care of her. Nice camping trip and great way to celebrate Tate's one month birthday.