Wasatch Mountain State Park

We escaped to Midway again this summer for a weekend camping trip. This time we went to Wasatch Mountain State Park for the first time. We’ve been up to Midway many times before, but we had idea there was a state park up there. This trip was actually one of the more memorable camping trips we’ve been on because it was surprisingly full of great family activities. The visitor center had some educational exhibits inside and outside featured a playground and children’s fishing pond. We didn’t research this place before heading out so we weren’t prepared to fish, but they did have rods to rent and the kids loved playing at the playground after having a picnic lunch.

Our camping necessities

Since we have a larger tent, we can’t fit on the typical 10′ x 10′ tent pad so we have to find larger sites that would fit our tent. We stayed in the Oak Hollow loop which was really green and we had a good amount of privacy from our neighbors. This was the first camping trip we took our Kids Cot which fit perfectly in the corner. Andrew was pretty happy to show off how his huge tent fit all of our camping equipment perfectly.

Geocaching (Can you spot the boxes?)

We spent a lot of our time exploring the area by geocaching which is basically modern day treasure hunting. I’ve always wanted to go geocaching so I was pretty excited to learn that the park sponsors several caches in the area and campers get to use their GPS units for free. They had a list of basic and multicaches to choose from and you just input the coordinates into the GPS and follow the route. It wasn’t until we found our first cache that the kids really understood why we were wandering around with GPS in hand. They called it “geo-hunting” and kept begging to do more.  We loved it because it was a great way to get the kids to hike/walk because there literally is a prize at the end. We completed a few basic ones and a couple multicaches, which were really fun. When you get to the location of the cache or tag, the GPS isn’t exact so we have to search the area and it’s surprising how these items can be easily passed over by those who aren’t looking for them. The kids were able to spot the boxes, while I was the only one who could find the tags for the multicaches. The park sponsored caches were great because we didn’t have to do anything but find them, log our find, and pick a prize. With other caches, you usually need to replace the item you took with something of equal value.

Beautiful views

Despite visiting Midway at least once a year, we were pleasantly surprised at everything we were able to do with our time here. We stayed a couple of nights and we never even got around to fishing. We took some scenic drives and explored the area, but geocaching was definitely the highlight of the trip. This park definitely ranks high on the list of great local state parks and we will definitely be geocaching again in the future.