Escalante - Southern Utah Day 1 & 2

 Day 1 - May 10th, 2012


We began our 5 hour journey down to Escalante Utah with a few of our great friends. Going there we chose to take I15 through Beaver and then through Panguitch/Kanab and parts of Bryce Canyon. There were some incredible sites. Amazingly enough we didn't stop once, surprisingly the kids didn't need to stop and we all had a pleasant 5 hour drive.

We rented out this beautiful cabin called Red Rock Ranch and as we were the first ones to arrive we walked around enjoying the scenery and checked out the visitors center.

Rachael was very excited to be there... Can't you tell?

View from the cabin (taken with my phone)

On the large lizard at the visitors center (camera phone again)

Once the Hirschi's and Cannon's arrived we all set out to find somewhere to eat. For those of you that have never been to Escalante there is pretty much nothing there, the town only stretches 1.5 miles. We ended up eating at this place called The Blue Cowboy. It was an interesting experience for one and I think they were overwhelmed with all of our kids. We had 10 kids 7 years old and younger.  The restaurant was very small and run by a couple who took orders and cooked the meals.


Day 2 - May 11th, 2012


Today we planned to do the Lower Calf Creek Fall's hike since this was the whole reason for coming down. We made and packed our lunches and headed out, it was actually fairly close to where we were staying.
What we thought would be a fairly simple hike turned into a 6.2 mile (round trip) hike through sand and in the hot desert sun. Our young kids did fantastically well, especially the 4 older boys heading the front. The younger kids made it most the way to the waterfall but Rachael wore herself out trying to keep up with those boys.

 Did I mention that Rachael was the only girl there? Yes, 1 girl and 9 boys!
The scenery was beautiful there, absolutely breathtaking and nothing around for miles.
As you can see in the picture below, at one point Aaron had both Joseph and Rachael on his back. I had the privileged of carrying her later as we fell back behind the group.

Quick pit stop to fuel up and empty the sand from our shoes.
We also stopped a lot as the boys tried catching lizards. They were everywhere!

Here is the first glimpse we got of the spectacular Calf Creek Fall's waterfall, 126 foot Falls

As soon as we arrived to the falls the kids were already upbeat and playing in the water. The water was freezing and the air temperature was actually quite a bit cooler there. It got chilly at times.

Lunch Time!

It was not time to return, I was quite nervous about the journey back but it proved to be a lot nicer. Clouds had rolled in, the temperature had cooled down a bit and for some reason the hike going back always seems shorter. I set out with Joseph on my back, Rachael was hand in hand with Aaron and Josh was already up ahead with the boys.

  A beautiful day spent with wonderful friends. I loved all the cheers we got from people passing us. They couldn't believe we did it with all those kids. One guy stopped us and asked if he could take a picture of us.