Our first family hike...ever.

Saturday we took the girls on their first hike. We went up to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood canyon. Our goal is to hike up to Timpanogos cave by the end of the summer so we thought it would be a good idea to do some shorter conditioning hikes beforehand. I was really surprised by how well they did. The hike isn't very long, only about 1 mile round trip, but they both ran/walked the whole thing. The last time Peter and I did this hike we were able to hike up through the river all the way to the top. Once at the top you could enter a cave that went back behind the falls. But I guess a couple of years ago part of the rock face to the right of the falls
broke off and fell into the river making it harder to climb up to the top. So we just hung out down below and threw rocks into the water. (why do kids love to throw rocks into water so much?) I had to hold on to Ayva pretty tight while we were close to the river. She wanted to jump right in and splash around. Bella was a bit more timid and even cried a bit when we got closer to the falls because she was scared of the rushing water.

When we got back down to the car we enjoyed a nice little picnic and then headed home to do yard work. We all had a great time and are looking forward to a little spelunking before the summer ends.

Here is a shot of the spectacular scenery we enjoyed on our hike.