One of my kids favorite hikes! Must be willing to get wet and climb a rickety ladder. What an adventure.
Distance: 4 miles round trip (to make it to the waterfall)
Time: 3-4 hours
Start: Parking Lot on 100 N. Kanarraville UT
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation Gain: 800-900 ft
Fee: $9/person ($8 + $1 processing fee)
Bring your water shoes and enjoy this trail where you can spend almost as much time in the water as on dry land if you chose. The water is cold, but for the most part the water was pretty low (mostly just above your shoes). There where a few spots where the water went above my knee, but most of those places can be avoided if you chose. We went over Labor Day weekend and there was quiet the crowd. We paid online thinking we could skip the lines at the pay station, but apparently they need to scan the codes that are emailed after paying online, so it really doesn’t save you any time to pay online.
At the first ladder, we waited about 30 minutes for our turn to climb the ladder. Since there is only one path up and down, the ladder becomes quite the bottleneck. The ladder was in good condition with a rope to help you. Because it is a single log with horizontally attached metal beams (which are wet), you should still be very cautious.
Past the first ladder there is a good place to eat lunch and watch the occasional person slide down the waterfall. My kids and I all tried it at least once, but most of us were too cold to get more whet than needful. My oldest two decided to sit under the waterfall for extra bragging rights. I think my daughter regretted it most of the way down as she shivered from cold.
We got the impression that most people don’t try to make it up to or past the second ladder (even though it isn’t much further). There is a section of water thigh deep that we had to go through and the ladder was much worse that the first one. It had wooden horizontal beams and they weren’t tightly secured. Some were secured by rope and others by bolts, one or two were missing. I only recommend this section for the older and more adventurous (we left my wife and two youngest behind). Once we passed the second ladder, we went a little further ahead, but were told that the trail just continues on and on and we felt like this was a good turning around point.
The trail is very fun and very worth the expense. The hope is that the fees will make the trail less congested, and perhaps that is the case, but since this was our first time there, I don’t have anything to compare it to.
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