Hiking to the Grotto and Nebo Loop

Last Saturday Jeremy and I took the kids up Payson Canyon to hike to the Grotto. I've been wanting to take them up there for quite some time, so we packed a few things and headed up. The hike is really pretty. It goes up through a narrow part of the canyon and has a river coming down through it.

There are several bridges you have to cross because the trail goes from one side of the river to the other. This is the first one we came to. The kids were all really nervous on this first one, but then they got the hang of it and were speeding across. Here is Jeremy helping Nathan on his first crossing.

Now Athena and Samantha's turn!

Ahhhh, the prize. This is what we hiked up to see. A really pretty waterfall that falls down into this little opening and forms a pool in the rocks. The water is really cold, but the temperature in the air is nice and cool.

We stayed around the waterfall for about 10-15 minutes and let everyone have a good look around. The girls waded in the water and Nathan found rocks to throw in.

Jeremy and Athena went to explore this little cave.

After cooling off our feet and getting a good look at the waterfall, we headed back down the trail. I thought the hike would take about 45 minutes, but it actually was about 45 minutes for the whole trip up and back! When we got to the bottom of the trail we saw a deer in the trees about 30 feet from the trail. That was fun to watch. :)


We expected the grotto trip would last longer than it did. We weren't quite ready to go home yet, so we decided to take a trip around the Nebo Loop. It is quite a beautiful scenic drive. This picture is from the top of the Nebo Loop looking south. I love how it seems like the mountains just go forever. It's very pretty.

The kids are out enjoying a chance to stretch their legs before we tell them to get in so we can keep driving.

This view is from the top facing North. There is a lot of haze in the air and it's hard to see, but down at the bottom of the mountains is Utah Valley and Utah Lake.


Before heading down towards Nephi Canyon, we saw a sign for something called Hell's Kitchen. Since we were there for the scenery, we decided to stop and have a look. There was a short, paved trail that led us to this. No, not led us to Nathan - it led us to the mountainside behind Nathan. It's an amazing mini-Zion. I had no idea we had this kind of beauty so close! There are lots of red rock pillars all the way down this small canyon.

After looking at Hell's Kitchen, the loop took us down to Nephi Canyon. We took that to I-15 and went back home again on the freeway. All the kids actually did really well on our outing and we had a lot of fun sharing another part of our beautiful world with the kids.