An Easy Walk through Capitol Wash

 

After the long drive on the 16th, we did as little as possible on the 17th. I don’t think I took a single picture except this one of the campground with snow.

We watched it melt all day and we stayed inside and read and thanked God we were not in a tent.

When we got going on Saturday the 18th of April, we were ready to get back outside. It was a beautiful sunny day.

Kim was not up for a strenuous hike, so we looked for a easy walk that would be through this beautiful area of Capitol Reef. We decided to take a walk through Capitol Wash to what they call “the Tanks”.

The walk was flat and easy. We just strolled along. There were some petroglyphs and then what they call the pioneer registry. This is some names inscribed on the canyon walls that were done by the early Mormon settlers.

The scenery was once again just stunning. We were really enjoying the walk. Here is part of the registry high up on a wall;

We walked on to a point that the trail turned up the side of the canyon to a place called “the tanks”. These are natural water holding tanks carved out of the rock that the early settlers used to water their livestock. I was not sure if Kim would want to go up, but she was ready to go. It was very steep, and we had to do some scrambling over the rocks, but the view was worth it.

The tanks were cool, but the natural bridge stole the show.

Kim really likes arches and natural bridges – Who knew?

We climbed back down and finished the walk back out to the parking area. Here is a Panoramic shot from on top.

We then went over to Grand Wash and checked that area out. Kim was not up for more hiking, so we just toured from the truck. We did stop and listen to the best echo I have heard in a while.

I just kept taking pictures of this awesome place. I won’t bore you with too many more of them.

We got back to the campground and decided to take a long drive on Sunday. Our only option for church was in Torrey at 5PM. It was a very cool little church. The priest has to drive 100+ miles to say mass. We were two of 9 at the service. Good thing that there were not more, I think the capacity was 30. They had a little social afterwards and we got to meet everyone.

The views out the window of the church were awesome.

One thing I have not mentioned is that at the Fruita campground, they have a small store that sells among other things, homemade fruit pies and cinnamon rolls. We have sampled them and can attest to the fact that the taste is excellent. Here is a cherry pie that I purchased for consumption on this evening:

Through some experimentation, we have determined that if you warm the pie put two scoops of vanilla ice cream on it and then set it between the two of us armed with spoon and fork we can consume it in about 5 minutes. WOW, they are good.

We would need the energy provided by this dessert to get through the next day. Sunday was another excellent adventure. I will not call it “epic”, so as not to overuse the term, but it was very close. I think I have two more entries to finish up Capitol Reef NP. Come back for more pictures of rocks and a few other interesting things.

Drive to Boulder, Utah

On Thursday, April 16, we got up to some intermittent snow showers coming down in the campground. We really wanted to get out, but the weather kept us inside for most of the morning. The snow stopped and the sun even came out, so we decided to head up to the visitor center and talk to the rangers about things to do. The rangers at Capitol Reef have been excellent. The ones I have talked to have been at this park for more than 20 years and really know their stuff. We had been looking at a drive down to the southern end of the park that looked like mostly pavement. They warned us about the drive back north that would go to high elevation and it looked like they would be getting snow. I was not concerned about the snow, I am in my trusty 4X4 truck and I would be on pavement. No big deal...I thought.

We headed out down the paved road to Notom. This is a small Mormon community like many you see in this area. We were driving right up the waterpocket fold. We had high ridges on both sides, but the road was fairly flat. The road turned to dirt and then came miles of washboarding like I have never seen. I think I have a few fillings that rattled loose. Here are a few shots of this area:

It was overcast, but the weather was fine at this point. We were thinking about turning around, but I do not have the ability to backtrack as has been well documented in this blog. So, on we went and the scenery just got better and better.

I remembered the ranger telling me something about the switchbacks. I came around a corner and saw this. Yep, we have to go up there!

If you look closely, there are switchbacks up that face. Let's just say it was intense.

Here is a look down from the top. You can see the road in this shot three different times. Did I mention that the road was really rough also?

We drove on for a few miles and the scenery was still getting better. A small arch in this one.

The road then turned to pavement and I was thinking "good we made it", because it was now snowing. Not hard, and not sticking, but it was all pavement back to camp. Then we hit a sign for the Grand Staircase-Escalante. Cool! I had forgotten we were going to go through the far northern part of this huge National Monument. Let's see what that is all about. We drove for a ways and the scenery was awesome and then we dropped into this canyon. And WOW! it was beautiful. Huge solid walls on both sides of red rocks. 

If you look closely in these pictures, you can see it is snowing harder. We drove on out of the canyon and then to the town of Boulder. Then we took a right on Hwy 12 back to camp. The road started to gain altitude. It kept going up. It is then the snow got much harder and before long all was white and the road was covered with wet snow. I took it slow and after some white knuckle  driving for about 40 miles we made it back to Torrey. 

When we got back to Capitol Reef, it had snowed there also. Here are some shots of the formations with snow on them. Very cool!

There was even snow back in the campground. I had to clear snow off of the solar panel. It was all melted by noon the next day, but it did create a unique experience. I know this is a large post, but that all happened in one day. We drove about 130 miles and I was tired at the end. It took us over 6 hours. We talked about what else we wanted to do while we were here. I think we will do much more. Stay tuned for some fun hikes and the drive that could go down as epic, but I am getting ahead of myself. I hope all of you have great days like this one. Get out and enjoy your life!

Capitol Reef National Park – 1 of many

 

I am writing this as we are deciding if we are going to leave Capitol Reef. We keep thinking we are going to leave and we decide to stay a bit longer. I did not know what to expect when we came here and all I can say is WOW! I love this place.

I will pick up the story of our visit from Tuesday, April 14th in the afternoon to the 15th. We knew we were in for a storm and it started with very serious winds on Tuesday afternoon. Did the wind stop these intrepid travelers. Here is the answer:

That is Kim standing at the Goosenecks overlook in 50 MPH winds. It was still cool:

The drive along highway 24 that runs through the park is beautiful.

This is the Castle formation:

You just can’t capture the shear size of these walls of rock. The history of the area is very interesting and we really got into the geology of the area.

I was just at a loss as to when to quit taking pictures and then what to pick for this blog. Everywhere you look is a postcard level view. We then took the “Scenic Drive”. It is 10 miles of mostly pavement and any vehicle can drive it. Here are a few more shots of that area:

Notice the threatening skies.

We drove back into Capitol Gorge:

That is one solid wall and about 400 feet high.

That formation is called the Golden Throne.

Some of the formations are very interesting.

Well that was the first two days. All that I have taken pictures of in this entry were done from paved or easy dirt roads. Can you imagine what those formations look like covered in snow? Well, you don’t have to imagine. I will show you. In the next week we drove about 200 miles of dirt and 4X4 roads exploring this amazing place. The pictures just don’t do it justice, but I will try to tell the story with the pictures.

We have not had internet at Capitol Reef NP and doing blog updates has been a challenge. I know I am a bit behind, but I will catch up in time. We are heading to Bryce Canyon NP next and we will see what that place has to offer. It will really need to be special to not take a back seat to Capitol Reef NP.

Capitol Reef National Park and the Fruita Campground

 

When we got back to the rig after our Sunday hike, we looked at the weather and it looked ominous. Monday would be a good travel day, but after that the wind was going to come up and it was going to get cold. They were even talking about SNOW. Surely that would only be at higher elevations. We decided that it was time to move on.

On Monday, April 13, we left Ken’s Lake campground and drove the 150 miles to Capitol Reef NP. We decided to try to get in to the Fruita campground. It looked good. They have no electric, but they have water and dump. It is in the middle of a desert, but it is all green with a fruit orchard. They do not take reservations, but at $10 per night, we wanted to try. We were on the road by 9AM and after a very desolate drive we arrived at Capitol Reef NP. The campground was as advertised and we were able to get one of the two sites that were available. The view from the campground is awesome. This is the view out the side of the trailer:

Yep, the bathroom is close. Not a bad thing after San Angelo…

Here is the site

The history of the area is really interesting. It was settled by a Mormon family that later became 6 families. They found that the Freemont river provided enough water to grow an orchard. When they turned it over to the park service, they have kept the beautiful orchards and crops growing. It really is an oasis in the desert. I love it here.

We have been going pretty hard the last few days and Kim put her hiking boots in the closet and I don’t think they will be out for a few days. On Tuesday morning, I decided to take a little 2.6 mile hike along the Freemont river. The walk along the river was nice, at first.

 

I did not notice the 600 foot elevation change in the trail information. I came to this and almost turned around.

The trail became very steep and rocky. Not to mention the drop to the right was, um significant.

 

The views were amazing. I just kept walking and finally made it to outlook #1.

I then walked up to outlook #2 and I almost lost my breath. The view of the campground from up there was something I will never forget.

Take a minute and click on the following Pano shot. Then enlarge it and start on the left and scan to the right. It is the best way to understand the view.

Scattered around the hills are black rocks like this one. They are from a volcanic eruption many eons ago. They were scattered about by the ice age.

The settlers built a rock wall out of them.

When I got back down to the river, I took this shot of the blooms on a tree. Many of the trees in the orchards still have blooms on them.

As the day went on it got very windy. They said that winds were over 50 MPH. We were pretty protected down in our valley. We did go out later in the day, but I will write about that in the next entry. We are off to a great start at Capitol Reef.