Bells Canyon Waterfalls

I had never been to Bells Canyon, nor it's tauted waterfalls, so I wanted to try it. I went with my friend Travis and we set out around 9:30 am, which was a little later than I wanted just because I wanted to beat the heat; but overall it turned out to be just fine. The first leg of the hike is from the trailhead which is a small parking lot off Wasatch Blvd around 10200 South, to the Lower Reservoir. This hike is very uphill at points, but is do-able for children, and the payoff is a gorgeous lake to sit and put your feet in. From there we followed a dirt road up and around the lake and started on the trail up Bells Canyon; this is where it started getting difficult. At times the trail is a fairly mellow dirt track through some beautiful trees but other times it is traversing steep hills, scattered with rocks. As you hike you come upon this big, flat, white/gray rock which gives you a great view of the valley. I can say, even if you climb up the canyon and don't reach the falls the view from up there on that big white rock is amazing. I saw some people on the other side of the canyon and wondered if they were bouldering or rock climbing because I've heard there are some climbs through the area.

We continued on and there are no markers for where to turn off for the lower falls or to continue on to the upper falls. My tip is you're hiking along and you can hear the water of course but you come to a Y in the trail and both ways are very well worn so you wonder which way to go...Well if you go left it takes you to the first falls, right continues up the canyon. We chose right, not knowing and continued on our way. We didn't see very many people, probably because we were hiking on a Friday morning... so we couldn't really ask people where we were headed. But the two guys we were able to ask said that we had passed the first falls already and the second falls were ahead of us maybe 30 mins or so. So we kept on trekking, and finally could hear some loud water so we found some small trail that led off towards the sound. Now, I have no idea whether these were the real second falls, but it was beautiful. After sitting there for a break, we decided to just follow small back trails along the river to go back down to the second falls which was a great idea because we found a wonderful secluded little pond that was above the first falls.




Then as we rounded the next corner the view of the falls was incredible. Getting to see it from and upper view before seeing them full on from the front was a treat and I would actually recommend seeing the small upper falls first and then working your way down to the bigger, first falls. Otherwise after seeing the first falls, I don't know if I'd want to continue hiking to the smaller, second because of how tough the hike is. Above the second falls, there is the Upper Reservoir but I've heard the hike is long and hard and is better suited for an overnight backpacking trip. We ate our lunch at the falls, cooling off in the mist, and it was just spectacular...I absolutely loved it.

We started hiking back down and the rocks and tree roots provide plenty of options to trip over... and as you go lower into the valley the heat starts to hit you. Which is where the lower reservoir came in handy :) We took our shoes off and waded around on the giant rocks that lie around the outlet. But we were still pretty hot so we decided to dive right in. The water was much more chilly out away from where the rocks were heating it, but it was SO refreshing. Afterwards, as we were hiking out we noticed a sign that had a swimmer on it, and a big circle with a line through it over the swimmer... OOPS! And knowing that we weren't supposed to after the fact kinda made it even more exciting :) It was a wonderful hike and I would recommend it.