Anyways, when we got McKay's work schedule and it showed a Friday off, I quickly booked a motel and started planning our little adventure. We left Thursday right after McKay was off work and arrived in Boulder, UT 4 hours later. We drove through Dixie National forest and enjoyed some breathtaking views!
The motel we stayed at was perfect. There are only two motels in the town and I'm glad I picked this one. We got to bed quickly because we were gonna be getting up early the next day.
The view from Calf Creek lookout point! We then had to drive allllll the way down into that canyon.
At the beginning of the trail there is a neat sign in book. It was fun seeing how the falls attracted people from all over the world! Switzerland, Germany, France, all over the United States, and more. The hike is 5.7 miles and we stopped several times for photos, videos, and drone flying.
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McKay carried James for a majority of the hike. I lasted about 45 minutes before I had him carry James. Looks like I need some more practice.... haha
Here's some fun drone footage McKay got. We want to create a video compilation of the adventure, so consider this a sneak peek! Fair warning, turn down your sound!! The drone also records sound, so all you hear is the whirring of the propellers and it's LOUD.
[wpvideo OcQguhRg]
Calf Creek Falls is MASSIVE. There's a lot of water, but because it falls from so high up, it doesn't look like it. The water was also FREEZING cold, but it felt oh so nice on our hot, sandy, sweaty bodies. There was only 5 people there when we got there, 3 of which were leaving. After playing at the falls for about 10 minutes, SOOOO many people started showing up. It was crazy. By the time we left, there was around 50 people there. Maybe more. I'm glad we beat the rush and got some great photos. :)
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The first thing McKay did when we got to the falls was dump out all the sand that had accumulated in his shoes, it was ridiculous!
I'm certain the crowd at the falls only grew after we left, because we passed so many people on our hike back. Along the trail there are lots and lots of cacti, especially cacti with yellow flowers! But occasionally we could see a pink flowered one. They weren't as common and we thought they were prettier.
Our sleepy little adventure buddy. We had to keep re-positioning his hat to keep the sun off of him. Speaking of which, we applied sun block four times throughout the hike and I am happy to report that nobody was burned, woo!
We heard about a cute Coffee shop about a mile down the road from the trail head, so we headed over there. It's called Kiva Koffeehouse and it was so cool. Sitting right on the ridge so you can eat a meal and enjoy the view!
We had thought about doing two hikes in Grand Staircase Escalante, Calf Creek Falls and Zebra Slot Canyon. But I'm glad we didn't. We were able to take our time and relax and play much more at Calf Creek than if we had planned to do the second hike. We'll come back and do Zebra some other time.
We took a break halfway through the drive to take some photos and fly the drone near these awesome cliffs. We have no idea what they're called, but they were the first real "red rocks" we saw on our way down and we got so excited! So on our drive back we stopped to check them out.
And that's a wrap!! It was a short and sweet trip.
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