Home Care In Kanarraville, UT

Hiking Southern Utah: Kanarra Creek Trail

Trail: Kanarra Creek Location: Kanarraville Difficulty: Easy to moderate Distance: 3.5 mi roundtrip Average time: Two to four hours Elevation gain: 700 ft Best time to go: Spring, summer, or fall What to bring: Water, snacks, camera, hat or sunscreen, a layer for the cool canyon, quick dry clothing (not cotton which takes a very long time to dry), and water socks.

Kanarra Creek Trail is a great way to experience a taste of what Zion offers without actually being in the park. This is a great hike for families, and I have included a hike hunt list below to make this hike even more exciting and fun for all ages!

Located in Kannaraville, 5.5 miles from Cedar City, this is a great option for people visiting the Utah Shakespeare Festival or Summer Games who do not have time to travel the extra miles to southern Utah’s famous park.

Kanarraville is a very small town without a market, so be sure to pack what you need. Water socks and quick-dry clothing are optional, but your feet will get wet as you walk through and cross the creek often, and your clothing might get wet going up the falls, depending on the flow of the creek.

Caution: As with any slot canyon, you do not want to hike this trail during rain. Check NOAA.com for current weather conditions, and do not enter the slot canyon if there is any chance of precipitation.

Directions: From Interstate 15, take exit 51. Travel south on Old Highway 91 towards the quiet town of Kanarraville. As you enter the town the highway turns into Main Street. Turn east on 100 North and follow it until you reach the parking lot at the trailhead. There is a $10 fee to park here. You may opt to park at Kanarraville Town Hall on Main Street for free, which is easy to find.

The trail: The trail starts and ends at the parking lot. Follow the road that leads to the water tower, and keep hiking, crossing a river. The river is a nice place to get a little wet in the summer as the first part of the hike is in the sun. Keep following the beaten path.

The trail meanders through the trees, in and out of the creek. When you walk in the water be careful and try to plant your feet on the lower smaller stones to avoid slipping down a slick, larger rock. As you are walking along this part of the trail, take notice of the butterflies and monarchs in the spring. You will find cicadas in the trees, ladybugs, and an occasional lazy lizard sunning.

Before you know it, you will look up and your breath will be taken away by the towering slot canyon. Enter in awe — allow the red sandstone to encompass you. Continue around the bend to the first falls. Here you will find a ladder. There is a rope to support you as you make your way up.

Continue on and you will find the second falls. I recommend going on past the second falls to find a nice pool and mossy water slide the kids and adults alike will enjoy. This area also provides some shade and a nice spot for a picnic before heading back out the canyon.

You can find YouTube videos of the canyon if you would like a sneak peak. Keep in mind that the river flow rate is greater in the spring during snow melt.

Hike Hunt List:

– A lazy lizard

– A cicada exoskeleton

– A golden aspen log or branch (these are usually found in the creek)

– A ladybug

– A moth or butterfly

– Slot canyon

– A ladder made of a log

– A mossy water slide

Please care for nature and what you find. Simply take pictures of what you find, if you can safely, and tag #hikehuntkanarra and @suindependent on Facebook and Instagram to share with us and others. Thank you and have fun!

One of the best things about Utah is the thousands of hiking trails we enjoy. However, when it’s 103 degrees, it’s sometimes hard to enjoy being outdoors. This fun hike takes you into a shady slot canyon and through a stream until you get to the prize at the end – Kanarraville Falls in Utah! Check out the Kanarraville Falls Trail and follow it all the way down to the enchanting waterfall at its end.

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This Snowy Utah Trail Leads You To A Cave With A Frozen Waterfall

Have you ever visited the stunning Kanarraville Falls in Utah? What did you think? Would you visit? If you’ve never been, does this spot make your bucket list? Let us know in the comments below!

In order to limit the number of people who take this trail each day, advanced tickets are required. You can find more information and purchase tickets on the Kanarra Falls website.

Interested in other Utah waterfalls? Check out these 20 Utah Waterfalls That Will Take Your Breath Away.

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Megan McDonald | January 04, 2021

Are there a lot of canyons in Utah?

Utah is filled with stunning red stone canyons, ones that looks like they belong smack in the middle of Arizona, not Utah. There are over 1,000 slot canyons in the southern portion of Utah, which is the densest amount of slot canyons in the world. And each and every one of them are breathtaking.

What is Utah most famous for?

Utah is most famous for three National Parks: Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Arches National Park. People come from all over the world to explore these incredible natural wonders.

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| Updated: May 18, 2018, 7:37 a.m.

Visiting Kanarraville Falls, one of Utah’s most popular hikes thanks to the powerful reach of social media, just became more expensive for a family than Zion National Park.

Starting this month, the town of Kanarraville is requiring a $8 permit in an effort to reduce the number of hikers, estimated at 40,000 a year. Another goal is to raise money to manage the scenic slot canyon that the town of 350 people taps for its culinary water.

”Every thing is a trial basis,” Mayor Randy Carter said of the fees. “We may end up putting a cap on the numbers. On weekends that’s where we have a problem.”

Permits are available online at kanarrafalls.com. They cost $8 per person, with no discounts for kids or seniors. Each day, a single 30-person group permit will be available for $25.

Local officials want to see visitation reduced to ensure the canyon’s resources aren’t degraded and to keep the hike enjoyable.

“We haven’t set a target. We are waiting to see what this fee will do,” said Iron County’s natural resources director Mike Worthen.

Situations similar to the one in Kanarraville Canyon are playing out all over Utah, where outdoor recreation is exploding in ways that can take a heavy toll on delicate places and turn once-peaceful getaways into crowded playgrounds.

Vicki Varela, Utah’s director of tourism, film and global branding, said Kanarraville appeared to be “doing exactly the right thing. “

“We all have to recognize that these wonderful places are impacted by many, many people visiting them,” Varela said. “We have to provide access in an orderly way, including parking, transportation, and the right number of people there.” …

The National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management have long required permits to keep numbers down at some of Utah’s bucket-list trails such as the Wave, Arches’ Fiery Furnace and Canyonlands’ White Rim and float trips on coveted stretches of the San Juan and Green rivers.

The 2.4-mile trail up Kanarraville Canyon passes through pink a sandstone slot canyon and ascends a series of water falls. Families with children often visit, but the hike can be treacherous, especially along the creek’s steep banks and where hikers must negotiate ladders.

Last Sunday, a woman broke her leg falling from a ladder, requiring the second rescue this month, according to Worthen.

“This isn’t something you want to take a toddler up,” he said. “It’s hiking at your own risk.”

Permits can be obtained from a web site that emails or texts buyers’ permits to their mobile devices. The permit-handling concessionaire charges a service fee of $1.54 for the first ticket, which is incrementally smaller with each additional permit in the order. So four permits cost $37.23.

Those without smart phones or who don’t know about the new rules can buy permits at the trailhead, but the town cannot yet accept cash, only credit or debit cards.

Local officials are trying to get the word out about the new permit requirement, but the state’s official tourism website, which devotes a page to Kanarraville Canyon, was updated only this week. Kanarraville does appears on the Cedar City Tourism Bureau’s list of “Instagram-worthy” spots. Its web site also does not provide current information, but does provide a link to the web site where visitor can buy permits.

The town eliminated the $10 parking fee at the lots it built at the trailhead on the east edge of town, where the canyon emerges from the Hurricane Cliffs.

Fees are an increasing part of Utah’s recreational picture, much to the dismay of many outdoor enthusiasts who don’t like paying to access public land. The U.S. Forest Service recently imposed recreation fees at American Fork Canyon and Mirror Lake Highway and will soon be bringing them to Little and Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Alta Ski Area this summer will manage access to Albion Basin, and expects to charge motorists $6 to drive to the Catherine Pass trailhead, although parking at Alta will remain free.

Iron County is helping Kanarraville with the new fee program, which was made possible by local governments leasing a piece of state trust land that the trail passes through. And while some of the revenue from the fee will wind up with Utah’s school fund, most of it will help cover the costs of rescues and improvements, which will likely include widening the road to the trailhead and installing a permanent bathroom and other amenities there.

CEDAR CITY — The 2021 monsoon season was especially devastating to Iron County residents, causing millions of dollars of damage to homes and businesses.

As floodwaters raced through houses and washed out roadways, they also swept away the iconic ladder set at the first waterfall in Kanarra Canyon south of Cedar City. Prior to the August storm that detached the structure, a 15-foot log with makeshift rungs provided access to the upper portion of the Kanarra Falls hike.

Kanarraville Town Clerk Heidi Loveland told St. George News that flash flooding pushed the ladder far enough down the canyon that town leaders decided to expedite plans to replace the structure rather than restore the old log.

“We’d actually been talking about what we’d do to replace the ladder for about a year,” Loveland said. “After it was washed away, we had to speed up our process to get that going because we were receiving several complaints every day from people that didn’t want to go on the hike unless the ladder was replaced.”

With tens of thousands of visitors each year, the hike generates about $350,000 in annual revenue. Approximately 10% of that goes to the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration to fund public education, and the rest goes to the municipal government of Kanarraville.

The town contracted Randy Carter, a local businessman and welder, to construct a more accessible and durable ladder made of aluminum. The new structure, which is more like a staircase, will hopefully reduce the wait time hikers face during high visitation times and prove to be quicker and safer for hikers and emergency personnel, Loveland said.

“Carter consulted with the town board and Iron County Search and Rescue on the design and construction of the ladder,” she said, adding that 90% of the rescues in the canyon happen above the first waterfall and that search and rescue personnel would have to put up riggings to get an injured person down in a sled.

“This new ladder will shave about an hour off of rescue time.”

The total cost for the new ladder was $7,000. Once it was completed, the only obstacle that remained was transporting the 500-plus pound stairway over a mile and a half up the uneven and waterlogged path of the hike.

Michael Humes, town board member and administrator at Southern Utah University, realized the aviation program at the university had the tools and expertise to make the task much simpler and speedy.

“Trying to pack this ladder up to the falls would have been very time consuming and taken a lot of men,” Humes said. “The aviation program had the helicopters, and they trained students on how to pick things up with a tagline and drop things where they should, so I reached out to the aviation department and asked if they would be interested in helping us.”

The response was overwhelmingly positive, and many of the instructors and staff in the program volunteered to help with preparations and serve as ground crew.

On Oct. 21, a team of volunteers from the Iron County Sheriff’s Office, the town of Kanarraville and SUU Aviation supported Rich Cannon, the chief instructor pilot, as he lifted the ladder from the mouth of the canyon and carried it to a point just a couple hundred feet above the falls.

Robert Paul, director of aviation marketing and assistant chief helicopter pilot, said the technical and safety requirements for the operation prohibited student involvement, but there were still many benefits to the program as a whole.

“It’s always good for our instructors, even our very senior instructors, to get the chance to do real world missions outside of the training environment,” Paul said. “It makes our instructors better, and we are able to pass those skills down to our students.”

Using a Bell 206 helicopter and a 100-foot longline, the SUU Aviation team was able to safely and quickly transport the ladder a distance that would have taken hours on foot. Once the ladder was flown to the point between the lower and upper falls, the pilot was able to detach it remotely, and ground crews carried the aluminum structure to its intended destination and secured it to the canyon wall.

Paul said the helicopter is the same model used in teaching students and that they get training in longline maneuvers like those on display in the operation. A video of the flight operation and the efforts of SUU Aviation can be found on the program’s Youtube page.

“We’re really grateful for local communities and the support they give us, so it’s really nice to be able to give something back,” Paul said. “We did not charge the town of Kanarraville – this was all volunteer, and we donated the flight time. We did it just because we like Kanarraville and we want to serve the people of Southern Utah.”

Public reactions to the new ladder have been mixed, with some expressing a dislike for its appearance or a longing for the thrill provided by ascending the treacherous old log. On the other hand, some have expressed appreciation for the convenience and relative safety of the new structure.

For their part, Kanarraville officials expressed their approval for the new ladder and reiterated the advantages it has over its predecessor.

“This is something that grandma can go on. This is something for people with younger children and people that are afraid of heights,” Loveland said. “I know it’s not the iconic ladder, and it’s not the prettiest to look at, but it will save a lot of time for people going up and down. This is the direction the town needed to go in order to keep people as safe as possible.”

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FROM JESSICA STAHELI—The Central Iron County Water Conservancy District (CICWCD) and mayors of Cedar City, Enoch and Kanarraville hosted a community briefing April 19 to discuss critical water issues including drought, the state’s Groundwater Management Plan for Cedar Valley, and the need to import water.

The meeting was attended by state and local leaders including State Sen. Evan Vickers, State Rep. Rex Shipp, Iron County Commissioners Marilyn Wood, Paul Cozzens and Mike Bleak, Cedar City Mayor Maile Wilson-Edwards, Enoch Mayor Geoffrey Chesnut, Kanarraville Mayor Betty Gould, and Utah’s Senior Advisor for Rural Affairs Stephen Lisonbee, who also serves as Southern Utah University’s Assistant Vice President in the Office of Regional Services.

The goal of the community leader gathering was to assemble key players from as many local entities and organizations as possible in the same room, discussing issues of tremendous importance to the valley’s future. Adding to the collaboration were attendees representing Southern Utah University, the Utah State University Extension Iron County Office, the Enterprise & Iron Conservation District, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Division of Water Rights and more.

Central Iron County Water Conservancy District General Manager Paul Monroe addressed the group and explained the District’s efforts to conserve, recharge, reuse, and import water for the valley. Monroe stressed that the District wants to continually work with communities and other entities in the area to ensure success for vital water projects. The timing is critical with growth, drought, and an overdrawn aquifer making the area’s water situation critical, and collaboration moving forward is imperative.

Recent additions to the District’s efforts include the Quichapa Recharge project, agricultural conservation, planning for a reuse project with the Cedar City Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility, and the Pine Valley Water Supply project.

The Quichapa Recharge project is part of an extensive recharge program that began in 2016 and now includes seven recharge facilities in Cedar Valley. The recharge facilities, developed in cooperation with local government agencies, have already added more than 14,000 acre-feet of additional water to the aquifer. Approximately $700,000 has been spent on these efforts.

The District is working with Cedar City and Enoch City to prepare for the construction of a reuse project that would transport treated effluent water from the Cedar City Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility to agricultural fields in the surrounding area. Transporting effluent water to that area will help reduce pumping from the declining aquifer.

Working with the Enterprise & Iron Conservation District and the Utah State Legislature, the District has helped convert more than 2,000 acres of center pivots to using low-elevation bubbler nozzles, which are far more efficient than traditional pivot nozzles. With agricultural water use as a large percentage of the Cedar Valley’s consumption, conservation and efficiency in agriculture are important to the District. Monroe has been appointed to serve on the Agricultural Water Optimization Task Force for the state of Utah.

The biggest upcoming project, which will need support from Cedar City, Enoch, Kanarraville and the county, is the Pine Valley Water Supply project, which aims to import 15,000 acre-feet of water from a valley northwest of Cedar City. The project is currently in the early planning stages.

The District announced to local leaders a new partnership with Washington County Water Conservancy District in asking residents to focus on three simple actions to conserve water: irrigate after dark, shorten your showers and fix a leak.

“These are three fundamental things we can all do right now,” Monroe said. “When entire communities are helping in these ways, that is when we start to see conservation work, and it establishes a beginning to a larger, concerted southern Utah effort.”

Mayor Wilson-Edwards urged all community members to do what they can to help.

"The importance of water is pivotal in our desert community, especially during an exceptional drought period like we are currently facing,” she said. “I encourage our community and the numerous different stakeholders in our valley to do all they can to help preserve this natural resource. While the City, CICWCD and other partners are looking at major water infrastructure projects, small changes in our personal water-wasting behaviors and habits can make a big difference for our water situation. We all can - and should - do more to ensure our water supply for years to come."

Wilson-Edwards said to help encourage residents to be more water-wise, the city enforces an ordinance that restricts day-time watering from April through October. Cedar City has also decided to replace the grass in the back part of Veterans’ Park with a more water-wise landscape. She said she hopes people will see that they have landscaping options that can make their properties look nice without using a lot of water.

Mayor Chesnut said growth has created some unanticipated water issues for the city. He said with a lot of effort from the Public Works Department, two churches, a school and all city facilities except one soccer field will soon be connected to the city’s secondary water system, which will give them a net increase of about 3 million gallons of culinary water per month.

Chesnut is excited about the technology of new underground drip irrigation systems that respond to chemicals from the lawn and save a ton of water. Installation of these systems is tricky in Enoch because of the hard, rocky soil, but he said the city will continue to look at options. A major challenge for the city, though, is that they don’t have enough places to pull water out of the ground, he said. Chesnut expressed optimism about having an open conversation about water with other community leaders in the area.

“Working together collectively, that’s a super exciting place to be, so I’m glad we’re all here,” he said.

Mayor Gould said it is important to the town of Kanarraville to educate their community and help them understand the need to conserve. She said they are working on updating their antiquated metering system so they can account for all the water in the town. She also said that she was honored to be at the meeting, collaborating with the rest of the valley.

The Central Iron County Water Conservancy District is charged with conserving, developing and stabilizing the Cedar Valley water supply for the benefit of all current and future water users and consumers in the region. The Water District educates residents about conservation, reuse and water import strategies as it strives to meet the challenges of declining water levels and community growth. For more information, visit cicwcd.org and learn about Localscapes Landscape Design community education classes, water conservation tips and more ways to conserve in your neighborhood. Email [email protected] for additional information.