We visited the Grand Canyon in March of 2016.
The Grand Canyon is an amazing place and people come from all over the world to see it. We've been here several times and the park is always very busy and it's hard to even find a parking place near the visitor's center! In the same area they have both a visitor center where the rangers are, and a bookstore where all the souvenirs are.
Head to the visitor center once you manage to park and get your junior ranger booklets. The junior ranger badge here has 3 levels for children of different ages. Pages with ravens on them are for kids 4-7; pages with coyotes are for kids 8-10, and pages with scorpions are for 11 and up. The program also requires attending a ranger talk, and the ranger has to sign their books. The ranger talks are offered throughout the day. The one we attended was about elk. We learned about keeping our distance from elk and the differences between deer and elk and between antlers and horns. The ranger brought out some elk antlers that we could touch.
After completing all the book pages, kids get sworn in and get their badges. If you are visiting late in the day you can get sworn in at the bookstore which stays open later than the visitor's center. Also at the bookstore, you can purchase the coordinating junior ranger patches for $2 each. The patches are quite nice and each age-range's patch is unique, so we bought them. We got the raven and coyote patches.We learned there is also a special junior ranger patch you can get if you make it down to the bottom of the canyon. Maybe next time!
Junior Ranger: "I love the Grand Canyon; it's so big. The best part this time was there was some snow on the ground and I got to play in it!"
Mom: "There were so many people around the visitor center that one of my kids to got lost in the crowd for a minute. That was scary. And there were elk strolling through the parking lot!"
