Friends and Waterfalls

Friends and Waterfalls

7-03-16

DAY 15


Today we truly tested the limits of our super van. In search of a beautiful watering hole, the super van bopped and weaved as best it could around the worst of potholes and large rocks. It was already quite an adventure before we'd even stepped from the car!

We left the campground in Torrey, UT and headed up over Boulder Mountain (10,000ish ft). Our plan was to get as far as we could on FR 168 and then hike the rest of the way to Pleasant Creek Falls  (a place Mama remembered from when she used to work in UT a long time ago). Of course, we were all routing for the super van to make it as far as possible because it meant less hiking for us. Luckily, it got further than anyone thought it would, so we ended up having to hike around 1 mile to get to the falls.

Since we hadn't showered in a while, the falls were a good place for us to get clean. Plus, we had this special place to ourselves. The water was cold and refreshing (almost a little too cold). It was fun exploring the falls. Three people on four wheelers came out as we were wrapping up. They commented they had never seen PBJ "tacos" (wraps) and then offered to give us a ride up the big hill to get us closer to the car. Maya was a little scared, but we all ended up getting rides. They were really nice so we gave them some maple syrup for helping us out.

Our the way back out the road, we met up with Guy, Bianca and the kids in their jeep. James immediately asked to go with them in their jeep, so we all ended up getting a super exciting jeep ride while Mama and Papa crawled along the rough road in the super van.

The next stop was a hike out to Upper Creek Falls near Escalante, Guy and his family. The hike wasn't very long, We reached this really high waterfall with several pools before it, one of which had a cliff for jumping and a waterfall that you could slide down. The other pools were fun to explore to see how deep they were (which they were surprisingly deep).

We were having lots of fun jumping and swimming when Gordon and James told me there was a snake swimming in the water with me. At first I thought they were joking, but then I looked and saw a giant snake in the water. Well, I got out crazy quick. Then  we all watched as the snake tried to climb the waterfall. Guy told us it was a gopher snake which are not dangerous. Plus they keep rattlesnakes away, so we cheered it on to safely make it out of the water. I got some good pictures of it - it was really cool.

The final entertainment of the day came when Gordon did a flip off the cliff, but landed smack on his tummy - ouch! The video was pretty funny to watch though. After hiking out, we said goodbye to our friends (which was a bummer) and continued on the Escalante, UT where we set up camp at the Petrified Forest State Park.