Grapvine Trail

Hunter went on a group date this past week. It was his first time on the Grapevine Trail. This trail is actually in Zion National Park but it's the backway so we didn't need to use our national park pass. The 2 younger girls thought it was a bit chipper when we started out. 

The beginning of the trail isn't very pretty. Just lots of desert landscaping with no real shade trees. 

The trailhead went from flat to downhill pretty quick. We were climbing down the mountain.

In some area's it was quite steep. It wasn't a hard trail but it isn't very well maintained. Lots of cactus growing on the trail. There were several spots with loose gravel. I came home with a skinned knee, a cut on my hand and bruised bum from slipping in the loose rock. 

Here's the cactus plants growing on the trail. 

Once we got to the bottom the scenery changed. Lots of water, lots of large rocks. We crossed the river a few times going down and coming back up. 

 Huner told us we'd get wet. He said we would be walking through the river so to wear shoes we didn't mind getting wet but they still needed to be good hiking shoes. Kylie missed the last part of that and wore her jelly sandals. She struggled in a few spots. Hunter being an awesome big brother that he is carried her over the slippery parts.  

There was this massive boulder that fell down the mountain and landed on smaller rocks. It was cool being able to walk underneath it. 

We came to several spots along the river the kids wanted to stop and play. But Hunter kept saying, not yet! Yes it was cool where we were but the destination was so much better. So we kept trudging along. 

And then we were there. An awesome little oasis. The water was so deep. The kiddo's could jump off the rocks. 

Hunter brought our pool net to catch some tadpoles.  

Kylie brought her little net from a bug kit. 

The water was cold, but felt good on our overheating bodies. 

It was crazy to think we were hiking in Zion National Park Memorial Weekend. We only passed one other group the whole time we were there. Crazy!

We sure love our Sunday afternoon hikes. We are trying to soak them all in knowing to soon it will be to hot to enjoy. We just don't enjoy hiking in 100+ degree weather. But we'll take the 80's for as long as we can. We will definitely come back.

While we were on the water there were a ton of gnats flying around. We knew we were getting bit but they were so small it wasn't bothering us. Monday morning, Maddie woke up with one eye swollen and the other barely able to open. Dang gnats! The rest of us were covered in bites too. Most of our bites swelled but not as bad as Maddie's eye. Pour thing.