We celebrated July 4^th hiking this amazing state park which is only half hour’s drive west of Palisade.  You can pay a $10 entry fee, but considering we are planning to visit many more national parks on our adventure we purchased an Annual Park Pass  for$80.  This is a money move (literally) if you’re planning to hit multiple parks in a 12 month period.  With the pass you can get access to any National Park or National Wild Life Refuge and bring a loaded car of friends or family with you.

Unfortunately Chica had to stay home, dogs are not allowed on hiking trails and in the Backwoods in National Parks.  We all make sacrifices Chica!

We got a map from the park ranger at the gate.  I already looked up moderate hikes and pegged the Devils Kitchen Trail for our first.  This trail leads to an awesome rock formation that creates a sheltered “room”.  We have some pictures below of the hike; the bottom picture is the rock formation we went into.  The whole hike round trip was about 1.5 miles.  Not bad, but there was a bit of climbing and it was 90+ degrees…

On the way to Devils Kitchen we saw another sign for a pool and waterfall.  After the Devils Kitchen hike we went back to the car and munched out on some leftover pasta and meat sauce to get some energy and trekked back out to find this improbable waterfall.  I mean this went against everything your mind allows you to believe given the landscape.

Well, we took a wrong turn at the fork in the road (the was no sign!) and decided to try to find it once we got back to the fork.  We got to the pool that was supposed to mark the halfway point to the waterfall; rather than a beautiful blue, cool pool to jump into, we came across an insect filled  mud-puddle – DAMN IT!

Do we continue another mile to find this waterfall?  Well we made it this far.  We trudge up the steep hill, look into the distance and figured the waterfall would be a disappointment and headed back.  It was hot and we were tired.

Lesson Learned: If we want waterfalls head into the mountains.