How to keep children safe on 'You fall, you die' trails.

Sounds scary and intense, but it quickly gets our point across without having to elaborate after we explained it the first few times.

Most hikes we go on are on trails that are very safe for our children. They can hike a reasonable distance ahead of us on those trails. These trails have wide trails without a steep drop off. If there aren't a lot of other people on these trails, we'll allow our children to run, bounce around, climb on logs, and so on.

Those types of hikes are great to allow the children to use their exploratory and enthusiastic energy.

Though, a lot of our hikes are like that, there are some hikes that we go on that are labeled as 'strenuous'. We really wanted our children to understand the risks of a strenuous trail so they would take the appropriate percussions. The first few times that we took them on a 'you fall, you die' trail, we paused, and explained the seriousness to them. These are trails that have a cliff, narrow trails, and don't have something to hold on to.

We told our children that it's likely for them to die if they fall. We explain to them that we, as their parents, would have a very hard time reaching them, and we would most likely need to wait for park rangers to come help. We explain to them that hospitals are far away, and they would take a really long time to get to. Though we have said this to our children, they are not terrified of these trails, but instead they have a healthy respect for the trail and staying safe.

We explain to our children how to stay safe, hug the wall if there is one, stay in the middle if there isn't. Sometimes, like at Devil's Garden in Arches National Park, they are better to go down on their bottoms vs. walking down.

We told them that they can not bounce, climb on things, get close to the edge, or run on these trails. We say they need to stay right by us if not holding our hands. We talk about the importance of having their hands free. Water bottles go in their backpacks, or ours.

Now, all we need to do is say "it's a you fall, you die trail" and our kids immediately know what we are talking about. They will bring it up in a loving manor, and tell others about it when telling them about our trips. When we passed the DANGER sign on the Laurel Falls trail in Great Smoky Mountains last summer, I read the sign to my youngest. She said "oh, it's a 'you fall, you die' trail."

For us, it's not about scaring the kids, it's about making sure they have a health respect for more dangerous trails. Since they have a healthy respect for these trails, we are able to hike on these trails and enjoy ourselves.