Cascading Falls

We've been to Zion many times and have done all of the easy, kid friendly, trails.  So we got online to see if we could find some trails that were "off the beaten path".  There are actually a lot.  If you're interested go here to see them.  We found one called Cascading Falls that sounded relatively easy and kid friendly.  To get there you go through the Mt. Carmel tunnel and then park just before the next shorter tunnel.  There is an unmarked trail that leads down to the wash.  You can follow the wash up for about a mile or so until you get to a slot canyon.  It was probably a little more than 2 miles round trip but a 650' elevation gain so it took us a few hours.

We've had a lot of rain and snow this spring so there was still water in the wash.  This would not be a good hike if there was a flash flood or if the wash was full of running water.  But for us, on Wednesday, it was perfect.

There was a lot of climbing involved in this hike.  These are the only pictures we got but there were definitely some steeper climbs further up the trail.  It wasn't too bad for my mountain goat kids, but for the mom with the baby it was a little tricky.

Once again, Evelyn did great in the carrier.  Sometimes she was awake and sometimes she was asleep but she was always content, until I fell, which was only two or three times.  They don't call it slick rock for nothing.  And when you can't see where to put your feet when you're walking it can be even harder to manage.  Evelyn had a few unexpected awakenings but I ended up with an assortment of scratches and bruises.  Oh well, it was totally worth it.

When we stopped for lunch the kids ran around the slick rock while I fed the baby.  Slickrock is fun like that.

We finally reached the slot canyon.

We decided to call it quits when the trees were getting thick and the rocks were too high for me to climb.  There were also some thunder clouds forming overhead and we definitely didn't want to get stuck here if it rained.

Going down was trickier than going up but just as beautiful.

Side note - Ryan is an avid bird watcher.  Wherever we go he's always pointing out the birds he sees.  I think that's why his new truck has a sunroof.  So as we were heading back to St. George on Wednesday he was pointing at a bird he could see through the sunroof and asking what kind of bird I thought it was.  I turned to him and pointed out his driver side window, "I think it's one of those".  He turned just in time to see a huge turkey vulture almost crash into his window.  It turned at the last second and flew up over the car.