Hikin While the Water's Fallin

Cascade Falls

Steps lead hikers up and around to the waterfall.

I live twenty minutes away from a National Park! Dixie National Park is very large and majestic. In my previous post,  I shared the basics about where Cedar Canyon and the National Forest are, so it's time for a little story. My wife Shelby and I got picked up by her sister and brother-in-law to hike to Cascade Falls. It was a considerable drive, about thirty miles, but fortunately we were in a nice, roomy car. We just went up the canyon road, which in Cedar is Utah Scenic Highway 15 East. 

Better directions are provided in the link.

This is where we hiked --->

Hey, I'm sure it's Niagra Falls in the spring.

after arriving from the turnoff to Cascade Falls. 

As you can see from Shelby's pictures, Cascade Falls is a breath-taking site. As for the actual water fall, it was more like a drippy stream when we went, but that was during the dead of summer. It's much wetter in the spring, I'm sure. More than anything, the views are what you go for. It's just beautiful, majestic country up there. And I say that as a native-Utahn, surrounded by rugged but likeable desert mountains for most of my life. I was surprised to find that all of this was only about a half hour drive up from my apartment. It's all quite impressive. The hike was a sort of in-betweener so far as difficulty goes. The trail is well maintained. At times it runs rather steep, but the lengthier stretches are on a subtle incline. The total distance is just under a mile there and back. The views going up in the medium-difficulty hike are pretty exciting, but the final view at the falls is just fantastic. The line of sight opens up to a wide perspective of Zion National Park. The air is naturally a little cooler around the water, and it seems like nature's little reward for reaching the end. The walk back seems shorter than the trek up to the falls. I recommend this trail for casual sightseers and photographers. To the hard-core hiker, Cascade Falls is more of a walk in the mountains, but even they will be taken aback by the sight of Zion National Park in the distance.

Wowza.

We be hikers.