Hiking Cottonwood Canyon

My parents currently live in Chicago which for us is a really fun city to have vacations in.  There's lots to do and it's always easy to get a direct flight.  But it's not exactly their cup of tea.  The winters are long and the weather is really unpredictable.  So when we scheduled Ethan's baptism for June, my dad decided they should stay almost a whole week and take advantage of the amazing outdoors of Utah.

We picked them up Tuesday morning from the airport and as soon as Ethan was out of school, we headed up the canyon for an afternoon hike.

Just a 20 minute drive away, and a quick lecture from Grandma  about trail etiquette :) and we were off!

Why don't I do this more often?  Mostly because Taylor doesn't love it and it's a little scary with a baby on your back and 3 adventurous little boys to keep track of.  But with Grandma and Grandpa along it was perfect!

Checking out an abandoned mine.  Ethan was VERY insistent that we follow the sign and NOT go in.  It's cute that he's such a rule follower.  I will appreciate that as a mother in a few years.

And we had to check out the waterfall.

Grandma taught all the boys how to scoot downhill on their bums.

The boys were enthralled with this tree bridge and I was pleased it was only 3 feet up.

See?  Couldn't do this without them.  Miles and Isla are just a wee bit too tiny.

Yay!  We made it.  Actually it wasn't really much of an accomplishment.  The waterfall was less than 1/8 mile from our car but it was worth a family picture.

And since the initial hike was so short, we decided to venture off on our own.

We basically just followed what looked like a well-worn path and we weren't disappointed.  We climbed up above the waterfall and back into a canyon along the river.

On our way down Grandpa spied a natural cave in the rocks which of course we had to go explore.  Grandma stayed back with Isla in the backpack.

How cool is this place.

Even Grandpa fit through.

And the view down from the other side was impressive if just a little scary for this momma.

There's grandpa still climbing higher after the boys and I headed back down. That dark spot in the bottom corner is the cave we climbed through.  That little speck of red is our Christmas present.  He gave us all very light but heavy duty backpacks and told us to take a picture wherever we went on adventures with it.  So far it's been to Arizona, Mexico, Chicago, Costa Rica, and now the mountains of Utah.  Pretty handy.

And of course we couldn't leave without trying the tree bridge out a few more times.  

A great afternoon hike and we were back in time to make dinner with Taylor.  A good start to our week of hikes.