It's a gorgeous and colorful 126ft waterfall sitting in a very peaceful cove at the head of Lower Calf Creek Canyon nestled deep in the Grand Staircase National Monument. The green and yellow colors that line the contours of the column of water comes from algae growing on the sandstone that thrives on the falls' miraculous year-round flow.

Once on the trail, which begins at the Calf Creek Recreation Area (there's a campground and car park that can easily overfill into Highway 12), you embark on a long and sandy but mostly flat 5.5 miles return hike. Given the harsh environment of the desert, I recommend getting a pretty early start (both times we were here, we started at around 7am or earlier) to beat the desert heat, to take advantage of the relative solitude at the falls before the crowds arrive, and to take advantage of the morning sunlight shining right on the falls.

Note that I specifically mentioned the sand on the trail, because if you combine that with the desert heat, this can be a deceptively strenuous hike (especially in the Summer). You'll definitely want to bring plenty of water and sunscreen for this hike. But even with all that being said, just about anyone is capable of doing the hike with a decent bit of respect for the environment they're in. It took us around 3 hours return to cover the whole 5.5 miles including photo and rest stops.

The trail has interpretive posts keyed to a paper brochure you might pick up at the trailhead. It goes through some of the interesting sights along the trail, which makes the hike even more interesting as it preoccupies you and keeps your mind off the longevity of the hike (or at least it did for us). Among the sites include an old watermelon patch, some Native American rock art sites, and various flora and fauna that you can see and learn more about.

The route along the trail is fairly straightforward, though there might be a few easy-to-miss parts of the trail where you have to follow rock cairns on the sandstone instead of the sandy trail itself.