kanarra falls.

This was the first hike of the season. Did this hike three times now and still haven't completed the whole thing. The furthest I've gotten was about 4 miles and just under 4 hours round trip. I don't know exactly what started the whole hiking thing but I'm glad it did. Soon, I'll be building on new adventures... indoor rock climbing, rappelling, who knows after that.

This was on the road in. It takes about a mile to get off the access road. The water was ankle deep and perfect to cool your feet off.


Wading through the creek... with some slippery rocks underneath.


The first waterfall you pass by.

And this is the slot canyon to the first waterfall with a ladder to climb over.

 This is the first ladder. The ladder was missing one rung but the climb actually wasn't too bad, at all. After climbing this there was another waterfall that you had to get up and over to get to the rest of the hike.

Just had to stick in a picture of my dirty trail shoes while taking a snack break.

And this is the second ladder. You had to wade through another slot canyon, climb over a couple rocks, saw a few more tiny waterfalls. The water wasn't as deep this time as it was going through the second but the water runs year round.

I'll definitely be heading back to this one and hopefully, get over that second ladder and completely finish off this hike. Getting as far as I did and climbing over some of this stuff was pretty much the whole "good job, good effort" thing but I wanna see it to the end. And to close it off, here's a picture of a lizard doing an awesome job of blending in.

red reef.

This Sunday's adventure took us to the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. They had campgrounds, places to cookout and hang for the day and also hiking. The trail that was taken was the Red Reef trail. I had seen on a few blogs that it led to a couple swimming holes and would be a nice hike. The hike, the scenery... everything about it was gorgeous. Nice and quiet, saw one group on the way in and luckily, got out of there before we saw two groups on the way out.
This was on the road into the area. Seeing this definitely got me excited for the day and didn't let me down at all.

This was the start of the hike. 

This was taken right before you get to the first swimming hole. 

I don't have a good picture of the first swimming hole and waterfall we got to but this was the second one. I'd seen pictures of people climbing the rope and jumping off this waterfall. You can't really see the bottom but the water was pretty deep. The parts I waded through I was up to the tops of my thighs.  

This was the view at the top of the second waterfall. It was beautiful and quiet. 

This is a picture was taken while I was basically standing in the middle of the creek water close to reaching my waist. 

Had to climb over a couple hills to see what was next since the water was pretty deep and didn't have the right clothes on to be swimming through the creek. I really do need to get better prepared for this stuff.

The views in this place were unbelievably awesome. You would never have guess this place existed. The only reminder you had that you were close to a city was the noise of airplanes overhead.  

And this was taken on the way out.

Wasn't fully prepared for this trip, who knew that you could have possibly been swimming in the creek... Oh well, all the more reason to head back here one of these weekends and maybe even bring friends. Definitely going to be better prepared for it. 

spring creek.

This was a really easy Sunday morning hike that was more getting to the scenery than walking in it.

I got stung or bit by something that just seemed to have aimed for my leg and dive bombed right into it. With a few expletives and some jumping around, I even had to check on it. All that's there right now is a big red spot and some yuck. Took some time for me to blurt out a couple more expletives,  curse the bug's life and kept moving. The hike was about 4 miles give or take. Mostly sand,  bugs, saw a snake or two. 

Crossed a tiny creek a couple times, saw where the creek used to be.

There were some places where you knew a gorgeous waterfall used to be but they were long dried out.

All in all it was nice to get out and stretch the legs but I'm not in a huge rush to get back here.