Utah – Bells Canyon Falls – Recreational Hiking and Sight Seeing

Bells Canyon Falls are located in the Rocky mountains near Salt Lake City. There are two trailheads for this hike. The Granite trailhead is located off Little Cottonwood Rd. and the Boulders trailhead is located on Wasactch Blvd. We took the Boulders trailhead for this hike.

Here’s a map of the two trailhead locations:

Both trails meet up at the reservoir. Here’s the Boulders trailhead:

The trail starts out in a neighborhood. A fence prevents hikers from walking through personal property.

Then it goes up. I think the purpose of this part of the trail is to sap your energy before you get started. There is little to no shade along the way and at 94 degrees, we were dying.

The best part about climbing a steep trail is that you gain altitude fast.

After climbing for a while, there is a downhill part that is steep.

There is a lot of sight seeing along the way. Bring a camera if you have one.

The drop leads to a creek crossing. The water was cascading when we crossed over and you can feel that it is ice cold.

After the creek, there is a lot more climbing.

This bridge goes to the long path around the reservoir. Keep on the straight path.

Here are a few pictures of the reservoir.

The trail turns into a maintenance road at this point.

In this picture you can see the waterfall (in the middle).

This is where the Granite trail meets up.

Eventually, you’ll see a sign that indicates the beginning of the trail to the falls.

This is where the trail turns a little more shady.

This is the easiest part of the trial, but it is still a climb.

The trail meets up with the creek again.

There is a bridge that crosses the creek.

Nine more miles! Oh, it’s only point-nine miles. Seems like a short hike. Unfortunately, it’s the most difficult part of the hike.

Here’s a good resting place when the sun doesn’t shine straight in.

Did I mention that the trail gets a bit rocky?

Sometimes you have to stop and look around. The scenery is really nice. It’s difficult to pay attention to the trail with such scenery in all directions.

This is where it starts to get steep. There is a lot of gravel and the rocks are slippery so it gets dangerous in here.

Oh man. This just never ends and it’s a steep.

Eventually, you’ll get to the waterfall sign. Going straight will lead to the upper falls. To the left is the lower falls.

You have to go over this narrow path on the edge of a cliff.

There is an opening where you can see over the valley.

As you can see, the trail is littered with pine needles. This makes it slippery.

This area is trampled from people trying to get a picture of the falls. The trail goes down from here, but it is very steep. So we put our gloves on and climb down from here.

The trail turns muddy and comes out onto a platform where the waterfall can be more easily viewed.

You can see how wet the rocks are. The mist in the upper left corner is from the waterfall.

There is more of a climb-down from the platform and a large rocky area gives a great view of the valley.

The walk back from this point is rough. The gravel and steep incline make it slow and treacherous. By the time we arrived at the smooth trail, my legs were killing me. I would rate this a moderate hike. We did not attempt the trail to the upper falls. That trail continues at a steep climb from the lower falls. Some day, when it’s not so hot outside, we’ll come back and climb to the upper falls.

Bring a lot of water. We ran out of water when we were about 1/4 mile from the parking lot on our way back and we had 3 liter water bottles. Next time, we’ll take extra bottles with us. Gloves were nice. The steep parts of the trail near the falls had nothing to hold onto except pine trees. The gloves were a good protection from getting scraped up. Climbing the steep part of the boulders required some hand holds too.