Meiners Mayhem: Diamond Fork Hot Springs

For Labor Day, Jared wanted to take us all to see the Hot Springs in Diamond Fork Canyon in Springville. Jared told the kids and I that it was about a one mile hike and there were pools to play in at the end. Meiners' family - do you remember the last hike Jared took us on while we were at Fish Lake? Anyways, for those that haven't noticed, Jared is tall and he has long legs. I think this skews his foot-travel measurements. One mile to 'daddy long legs' is about 3 miles to the rest of us! In our trusting innocence, we packed our lunches, our suits, and our a towels and we were on our way!

Sidenote : I had heard of this hike and springs while at BYU, but I was always warned about the 'old, naked guys' that were there. Hence, one experience I didn't experience. Jared assured me that the old, naked guys don't go in the middle of the day, so I agreed that we would go. (Of course, on the day of, three of the people I tell we're going to the Springs ask me if that's where the naked guys hang out!) Luckily, we didn't see any naked guys *Whew!* but the kids caught wind of my fears along the way and decided to count all the naked guys on the trail - not wearing your shirt
constitutes 'naked'. It was funny that they were quietly keeping count until Josh points and yells out "NAKED GUY!!" as one guy passed by us. Um, yeah, game over!

Anyways, it's a beautiful hike. Tons of green and shade and almost all of it runs by the stream/river. It took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there and we overheard someone at the pools say it was really a 2.2 mile hike. The boys had a lot of fun in the pools once we reached the end. They traveled in and out of pools and slid down mossy rocks. Me, I don't care for rotten eggs so much, so I didn't care to swim in water that smelled like them! Just kidding. Honestly, the sulphur smell wasn't too bad. My real reason for not swimming is that I just don't like hot water.

This is us at the beginning of our hike. Clean, free of blood, still smelling like Tide.

The whole trail was gorgeous. We were really surprised by the size of some of the boulders that were in the stream. In some spots, you could still see the regrowth in the path that the boulder took down the mountain.

Sam hitched a ride with Jared most of the way, but we had a rule that he had to hold hands if he walked. He was adamant that he hold only Joshie's hand. I thought they were so cute walking together.

At first site, this looked like shedded snake skin and it was HUGE! But, then we remembered we were in Utah and not the Amazon so it turned out to be just a really awesome tree branch.

Just a few more minutes - we could smell it by this point and the boys were getting a little tired of walking.

We made it! This was the first pool they all hopped into - it was pretty warm and I was surprised they stayed i nit for as long as they did.

At the top of the pools was a little waterfall. Cam went behind the falls and is peeking through a hole in the rock.

This area was built up with rocks like a hot tub. I'm not sure if the adults liked Cameron splashing around but he really needed to sit under the hose and pretend it was a shower!

Sam and Josh hung out with me for a minute until they realized this was as far as I was going in. They soon ditched me for their more adventurous dad.

Sam and Jared in one of the pools that was 'cold right here and warm right there'. That doesn't really make me have happy thoughts about being in that water!The milky color was pretty, though.

This is one of the spots that you could sit and slide right down the mossy rocks. If you look back at the picture above, Jared is sitting right at the top of the slide and Jake is at the bottom of it here.