Last Saturday was a fun day for us. We were on the road all day long attending party after party.
Actually it was just two parties, one celebrating a baptism and one a cousins bridal party, but still…fun.
The two parties were far from our home and were an hour’s drive apart.
Not wanting to drive back home in between, we decided to bring stuff to do a quick hike while we were out of the house.
So after party #1, we changed our clothes and found a short little hike near where we were via our favorite hike book.
Last week we made a backyard adventure in our own backyard. This week, we ended up in Neff’s Canyon which is located above Olympus Cove in someone else’s backyard.
It has a nice little parking lot at the trail head with plenty of spots.
The trail is steep for kids, so we moved slow and no one complained. The good news is, there is intermittent shade and a fantastic view of the valley. I did a terrible job documenting the view any of the photos I took, so you’ll just have to take my word for it I guess.
If you’re planning to try this one, be sure to bring plenty of water if you go on a hot day like we did. Your mouth gets dry quickly and it was nice to 
have some extra water to splash on each other to keep cool. It’s much nicer to hike on a hot day if the back of your shirt is wet, plus it was fun to spray my kids down with our hydration water back packs. They loved it. If you don’t believe me, just ask me (not my kids).
We hiked for 15 or so minutes on the hot, steep and dry trail before we came into a dramatic change in the setting. We rounded the corner and found a nice big spring. The water was mostly shallow enough that we could walk through without getting our shoes wet. Some places we had to look for a rock to step on, but that was easy enough to do. 
The spring was surrounded by trees and cool air. We played for quite a while splashing, collecting unique rocks and generally enjoying ourselves. 
Neff’s Canyon is at the base of Mount Olympus, famous for it’s natural spring drinking water.
While we were on the trail we saw a big water storage tank and a few peeks at an underground 10 inch pipe carrying the treasured water from the mountain springs into the Salt Lake water shed system. There were a lot of signs as well informing hikers to be careful with dogs and kids to protect the water quality.
It was a good opportunity to explain to the kids the magic behind drinking water and how our water system works.
After a while we headed a little farther up the trail for more exploration, but ran out of time and turned around. Sometime soon, we’d love to come back to see what was beyond where we left off.
I’d recommend visiting this trail at least as far as the spring to anyone. It’s a little steep, but it’s not very long. I think almost anyone even with small children could get there. It was a great place to be on a hot summer day.
