Do some nature study. Note signs of wildlife, past glacier activity, and seasonal changes along the trail and ask your kids lots of questions: "What lives in that pond? Which plants are growing here?" Because of environmental concerns, it's sometimes best not to gather nature finds; when that's the case, we use a digital camera to create cybercollections. Back home, online services such as Shutterfly let us organize our finds for further study or sharing."
Stop and play along the way. Hiking is all about forward momentum, but children are natural dawdlers. To break up the hike and make sure everyone gets chances to rest, we give candy stops at certain milestones and play breaks at enticing streams or rock formations. My kids make a game of finding forest furniture to rest on: weather-worn boulders, stumps, and fallen logs that make comfortable chairs and footstools. And we always search for a perfect picnic rock -- a flat rock big enough for six or more -- for lunch.
Celebrate at the finish line. When you're back at the trailhead, show your kids on the map just how far they've come. Give plenty of high fives and find a meaningful way to record your accomplishment. Our map of Rocky Mountain National Park is now almost completely yellow, because, with the help of a highlighter, we've created a visual log of all the trails that we've completed. We make copies of our map to take on the trail and keep the memento map clean and dry at home.
