Hiking to Stewart Falls

This morning Brandt, Blythe, and I hiked to Stewart Falls with Eugene and Sharae and their kids, as well as Mikayla and her kids.  It was a beautiful day and we headed out early so that we wouldn't be hiking in the really hot.  We were, however, delayed in our start because of an accident on the canyon road just above Sundance.  A small delivery truck flipped over on its side and needed to be righted by a two truck, but it blocked all the traffic going up or down the canyon.  We were told the wait would be around an hour, but we got out at Sundance to run around a bit, and only waited about 20 minutes. 

We hiked from the Sundance cabins so the hike itself wouldn't be too long, considering we were hiking with small people, and it turned out to be a fun hike.  It was a bit ridiculous, too.  We started from a small parking lot, at a trailhead, with the falls almost directly in front of us, but we somehow missed the actual path and wound up on a deer trail, traipsing through low-growing trees and scampering over rocks and large sticks.  I felt like we should have had a machete to hack our way through.  As we approached the falls, we came up the trail and saw a sign ahead of us.  When we got there, the sign said, "No Hiking Beyond This Point."  We'd spent our whole time hiking "beyond the point."  

Once we arrived at the falls, we played around in the water and ate all our snacks.  It got busy as we stayed, but we got cute pictures beside--and under--the falls.  And after playing, we hiked back to the car.  I had hoped to stay on the actual trail, but it was moving away from the car and we didn't know if the path we were on would get us back.  So we all walked right past the sign again, and hiked beyond the point so we could get home.  Ridiculous.  All in all, however, it was a lovely outdoorsy outing, super fun with cousins.

Brandt and Luke running under the waterfall.

Blythe and Makenna did it too, but I wasn't fast enough with the camera to catch that moment.

Blake and Eugene under the falls.

Cora did not like the cold water.

I kept saying to people, 

"Hurry! We don't want anyone else to see us hiking past this point!"

I don't think we were spotted.

It wasn't a real trail.

Cora napped on me as we hiked.