Our big event for February was a quick day trip to Slot Canyons in New Mexico. Our friends, the Andersons, planned a trip to check out the hiking and camping spot around Slot Canyons and invited other families to join them so we went and the Deca family went. Slot Canyons are outside Las Cruces, NM which is only about 45 minutes away from us. We drove out Saturday morning and met up at a pizza place in Las Cruces for lunch before traveling the final 20 minutes to the start of the hiking trails. With three families, we took an entire section of the restaurant and everyone sat with the kids their ages so here’s the table of tweens - Tessa, Aubrey, and Rianne.
And here was the table of teenagers - Abby, Caleb, Danen, Braelinn, and Ethan. It’s always more fun to go on trips with friends. Once we left the restaurant, the kids split up in the cars too so they could ride with their friends.
And finally, here’s the table of littles - Taryn, Ashleigh, and Presley. We ended up with these fun girls and the tweens in our van as we drove the rest of the way. They loved singing loudly in the car and having fun.
The building next to the pizza place had a giant mural on the side of the building that faced the parking lot where we parked. Since we were the first family to arrive, we had some time to waste, so we walked over and took some pictures by the mural. The girls thought it was pretty cool. The drawings and details were pretty amazing.
After eating but before driving to the slot canyons, our girls wanted to take the other girls over to the mural to take their own pictures. You can see the full mural better in these pictures, and the girls thought it would be fun to jump in their picture and I thought they made for some really cute pictures.
When we made it to the start of the hiking trail, we parked on the side of the road and made sure we had everything we needed to start the hike. Kristina was hoping to plan a father/daughter camp out in the summer, so she wanted to see if this hike was doable for little kids if they were to camp here. We took a picture of all of the kids from the three families where we started the hike.
We had to hike a little ways in on flat dirt paths to get to where the entrance to the canyons began. We took another picture of the kids getting ready to start their adventure. It was a beautiful day and the kids were ready to explore with their friends.
The slot canyons were amazing and the rock formations leading up to the actual canyons were pretty cool themselves. The kids kept finding more and more places they wanted to climb and have their picture taken. It was fun to let them explore and climb and just enjoy nature.
Inside the slot canyons was so cool. The walls were so tall and some of the walkways were very narrow. The walls sometimes even curved or were high enough that the sun was blocked and it was pretty chilly. The views were just amazing, and it seemed like a very simple hike that anyone of any age could do. Here’s Tessa near one of the tall walls and our family as we hiked inside the canyons.
There were a lot of hidden slots and spaces that the kids found. Aubrey hid here until I caught up with her and then wanted her picture taken there. You can tell from the colors that this was deeper in the canyons where the sun was not reaching although you can see at the right edge of the picture where the sun was still shining. I thought Aubrey’s silly face in the first picture was pretty funny. I love when the girls have fun outside and enjoy the outdoors.
Abby took this selfie of us while we hiked through the canyons. You can find certain spots where the sun would shine down in just one spot here or there. It made for some really pretty lightings when taking pictures.
Here’s Abby with her best friend Braelinn. They were at the back of the hiking group because they stopped the most to take pictures. As we hiked out of the main canyons hiking spot, the younger kids who had rushed through the hike found some rocks to hang out on while the older kids finally made their way out of the canyons.
We had this picture taken of the moms, me with Kristina and Niki. You can see how high the walls go and the curvature of the canyon walls. It really was so beautiful. We also got a picture of all the parents together. It was harder finding spots wide enough for larger group pictures because some of the walkways were so narrow as you can kind of tell from this second picture.
The teenagers finally made it out to the waiting spot and got to rest while the younger kids explored the open terrain. The girls were more accommodating to have their picture taken, but the boys didn’t seem to mind too much when I found them for a picture.
Outside of the canyons, there were still open hiking paths that we followed for awhile. We found a tiny trail off the beaten path that we decided to follow and it took us up to a very high point on this hilltop. Kristina stayed behind at first to get a picture of everyone up there. It was beautiful up there, but I kept getting nervous as all the kids roamed around and there were so many edges since it wasn’t very big up there.
We did take family pictures at the very top so you could see some of the view that we saw from up there. It was very pretty and I love having family pictures.
It was pretty steep getting up and down to the top hill, but the kids thought it was fun. We had some kids who blazed the trails to show us the way, and others who moved more slowly and cautiously and would freak out if they felt like they got hurt at all. But with all of the older kids and adults, we were able to hike around without any injuries and with lots of fun pictures.
As we came down from the hill and followed another hiking path, we stopped for pictures on the way. There was this hill with some rocks that made for a good picture spot for the kids so I got a picture of my kids after some of the other families did the same thing with their kids. I took this closeup picture of Taryn and Ashleigh as they did most of their hiking and exploring together.
A couple final pictures that I wanted included were some selfies as we walked back through the canyons to get back to our cars. Here I am with Taryn and Tyler even let me take a picture of us together even though he really doesn’t like being in pictures. He did take his new camera that he got for Christmas so he could take some of his own pictures, but he prefers to be the photographer than the subject and he was taking some good nature shots of our views.
As we walked back through the canyons, we had all the kids find places to climb the wall so I could take a video of them saying hi as I walked down the canyon. You can tell in this first picture how narrow the walkway is, but all the climbing spots where kids could find ledges to stand on or crevices to hide in like Aubrey’s hiding spot.
We were able to set up one of the phones on a timer to take a picture of the entire group - all three families. All of our kids are close in age and all of the adults get along really well, so we had a great time together. It was so much fun. This is right at the mouth of the canyons as we came out at the end of the hike.
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