Backpacking 28 Miles in Escalante, Utah - With my 8 year old!

Five days in the Escalante backcountry with 8-year-old Kayla. By day two, everything fell apart.
Our raft exploded. Kayla developed a painful rash. River levels dropped overnight, turning our planned route into an impossible maze of mud. What do you do when your carefully planned family backpacking trip becomes a survival lesson? You trust your kid - and hike 14.2 miles out in a single day.

After five years of adventure parenting, I've learned that the best trips aren't the perfect ones. They're the ones that test everything you've taught your kids about perseverance, problem-solving, and mental toughness. Watching Kayla dig deep and find strength I didn't know she had? That's worth more than any Instagram-perfect adventure.

This wasn't our first time dealing with backcountry challenges, but it was our biggest test yet. All those training hikes, all those conversations about "what if," all those moments of building confidence on smaller adventures - they all led to this 14-mile marathon march through the desert.

Sometimes the best family adventures are the ones that go sideways. We protect the exact location of this route, but this happened deep in the Escalante canyon system. If you're wondering what your kids are really capable of when things get tough, this might surprise you.

New family adventures every Saturday at 2pm MST - the victories AND the struggles.

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