Hiking Capitol Reef (09/25/21)

 We spent a week in Capitol Reef National Park years ago, but our game plan this time around included one thing, and one thing only…hiking.

Looking at the trail map, I had to go back in my blog and try and determine which hikes we have already done. There are enough trails here that we didn’t need to repeat any unless we wanted to.

We started with Golden Throne. The trail head is all the way down the scenic drive, at the end of a dirt road (we were glad we chose this hike first- it rained the next day and the road was washed out for several days).

 

The trail is 4.5 miles with 1200 ft of gain, and we felt every foot of it. The trail followed along an edge of the “mountain” as it climbed higher, to the peak.

To give you and idea of the scale, the arrow points to several people on the trail.

The “throne” itself wasn’t particularly exciting, but the trail was good and it was worth it, although by the time we made it back to the truck, I wasn’t really sure. I knew the hike took a lot out of us, and it turns out it was mostly due to the heat- it was 104* when we finished the hike.

The next day was much cooler, and our hike was a 3.7 mile loop called Chimney Rock. We both enjoyed this hike, stopping often to admire the views.

The following day, Sunday, we had a plan, but when we got to the trailhead, it was overrun with people and there was no where to park so we went to Plan B.  Along the way we stopped to pick some fruit in the orchards that are still in the park.  We had never done that before- we ended up using the apples to make apple crisp.

Anyway, as we drove to our Plan B, it became apparent that the road we needed to access was closed due to flooding. Thwarted again, we had no Plan C, so we gave up and went home.

Monday was what we call a twofer.  We hiked two trails.  This time we got up and out the door early and managed to get a parking spot at Hickman Bridge Trail. 

Its also the parking lot for Cohab Canyon trail, but we knew Hickman Bridge would be the crowded one so we headed there first. The trail heads up first, and then over to a natural bridge. There were actually two smaller bridges along the way that were really neat too. Its hard to get a decent picture of a bridge or arch.

After two miles and 350 feet of gain, we finished that trail.  As a side rant, we had 2-3 groups ask us if they were “almost” to the bridge. They  were less than 1/4 of the way there, they were all wearing inappropriate footwear, already hot, and not ONE of them had any water.  I literally told all of them they would never make it without water- so they turned around.

Having finished that hike, we walked across the street and headed up Cohab Canyon trail. We never planned on hiking the whole trail, we just wanted to get as far as the scenic overlooks. It turned out to be 2.5 miles and 500 ft of gain.  The views of Fruita were worth it, for sure.

Our final hike before leaving Capitol Reef was longish, at 5 miles, but had very little elevation gain so we got to give our legs a rest.

We hiked through Grand Wash- it wasn’t the most picturesque trail but we still enjoyed it.  Although, looking at the pictures again, it wasn't too bad.

Capitol Reef National Park (05-13-12)

The Capitol Reef area encompasses a wrinkle, or fold, in the earth’s crust, which is called the Waterpocket Fold. It was created at the same time as the Rocky Mountains, but instead of rising up as a mountain range, this 100 mile long section folded.

  After leaving Escalante, we drove Rte 12 through the Grand Staircase area until we veered off to reach the town of Torrey.  Capitol Reef has a campground but it’s first come/first served and they have very few sites that will fit us, so we stayed in town instead.  Our first day was spent getting acquainted with the area by way of a few short hikes and a stop at the Visitor’s Center to get some ideas on what to see.

19th century pioneers settled in this area because of the oasis created by the Fremont River. They were able to grow crops here, especially fruit trees, so the community was called Fruita.  One of the trails we took was to the Pioneer Register(you’ll have to enlarge the photo to see the graffiti).  It’s essentially very old graffiti. People signed their names onto the canyon walls as long ago as 1880. Some of them wrote their names by shooting bullets into the wall. To get to the register, we drove a mile or so down a dirt road in a gorge, called Grand Wash, then hiked a short way into the slot canyon. 

Our intent was to also hike another trail that started in the Wash, but it’s no place to be when the weather is threatening, so when we heard the first rumble of thunder, we skedaddled out of there.  I was annoyed by some of the other hikers who were continuing on their way because “Gee, wouldn’t the rangers come and get us if the weather was going to be that bad?” Hello??  Did you not see all the signs posted, warning you to leave if it looks like rain, and stating in no uncertain terms that you are responsible for your own safety?? Ugh (Rant over).

We didn’t want to do a major hike that day anyway, because the following day was our “biggie”.  We were hiking to the Navajo Knobs, the highest spot in the area, a 10 mile trip with 2500 ft of elevation gain.  The knobs are the highest white rock in this picture.

The first part of the hike was pretty standard, but a mile or so into it, it got really interesting.  When I could stop and catch my breath, that is.  You can see the long diagonal ledge in this picture- each one is about 1/4-3/4 of a mile long.  Once you reach the end, you turn the corner, head downhill a bit, then go up the next ledge.  There were 4 of those ledges to walk up.  At times, we were within feet of the edge, looking straight down, and in other places it was wider.

 

The view at the top was amazing, and worth the trek up there. 

After that kind of hike, I wasn’t sure how much I’d be up for another one the following day, but the things that we wanted to see involved another hike of 6 miles, sooooo….off we went. This time we were hiking the Frying Pan trail, to see the fold from a different perspective, and the Cassidy Arch Trail.  Cassidy Arch is named for Butch Cassidy, who had a hideout in this area. The view from the top of Frying Pan trail was pretty good, but not as good as the one from Navajo Knobs.


 
Cassidy Arch, however, was really cool.  This trail is what we call a “twofer”.  It has an interesting destination, but the trail to get to it is interesting as well.  Hiking on the sandstone is a lot of fun. The arch itself is huge- the top of it is about 30 feet wide, and you can walk across it.  Even I did, it felt so wide.  I took pictures of the view looking down, but it’s impossible to do it justice in a photo.

Our stay in Capitol Reef was short, and we’d love to come back and explore some of the other areas.  The park is huge, and this was just one small area of it.

Bye Fresno… (05-02-12)

Hello, Utah.  Well, tomorrow we’ll say hi to Utah.  Right now we are in Boron, CA overnight after leaving Fresno this morning.  We plan to leave here very early in the morning because the forecast calls for pretty strong winds.  We didn’t unhook, so we should be able to scoot out of here pretty quickly.

I really fell down on the job of picture taking in the last week or so, so I asked Kirk to send me the pictures that he took last weekend.  This is the best of them. Paul and I went up to Kirk and Karen’s cabin again to make them work on the cabin some more.  Paul and Kirk tore apart one of the bathrooms, moved the sink and were planning on moving the toilet, but they decided they need a corner toilet, which they didn’t have, so they stopped after moving the sink.

In the meantime, Karen and I were painting the living room wall, and a closet.  The projects were fun, partly because it wasn’t our cabin, and partly because we just have a good time with Kirk and Karen, regardless.

The month we spent in Fresno went by very quickly and had a different feel to it than our usual stops.  There wasn’t any sightseeing or hiking- it was more like just day to day living. We spent some days working on projects, or hanging out at the trailer.  Thanks to Suzy, I had a gym membership for the time we were there.  I didn’t go as often as I should have, but at least I went a few times!  We managed to squeeze in quite a bit of socializing between projects, giving us a pretty good idea how it would be if we actually lived near our friends, although we all agreed we are exhausted and couldn’t have kept up that pace.

Our original plan called for us to leave Fresno last week, but one of the major things Paul needed to do in Fresno was install the Straight-line System on the trailer axles.  We have tandem axles on the trailer and the way it works usually is that the front axle is pulled along, and the rear axle is pushed.  (In theory) That can cause irregular tire wear, which we have had an issue with in the past.  DRV, the manufacturer of our trailer, shipped us this Straight-line system for Paul to put on, at no cost to us. Unfortunately, the package was missing a few crucial bushings, which meant we had to wait for them to arrive to finish the upgrade. Once they got here, it only took him a few hours to finish the installation. Once that was done, he rotated the spare tire into the mix, so he can assess whether there is still a tire wear issue or not.

Since we had to stick around anyway, I decided to go ahead and order my new Verizon iphone. It arrived yesterday, so I’ve been busy updating all the contacts etc.  Unfortunately the phone that has most of my contacts is dead and I won’t be able to retrieve everyone’s phone numbers.  I have some of them, but not all. 

I’ve also been doing a fair amount of research.  In the next month we will probably visit 7 national parks and monuments, before landing in Salt Lake City at the beginning of June. I don’t in general like to over-research things, but I also don’t want to arrive at these parks with no idea of what we should see and do.  So, all of my traveling friends, if you have thoughts on Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands, Grand Staircase Escalante, Mesa Verde, Arches, Moab, and Natural Bridges, bring it on!

I think we might have waited just a little too late in the year to visit these parks, based on the weather forecast, so I also did some shopping and got some new hiking boots that will be more appropriate for hot desert weather. My good boots are really backpacking boots- heavy, leather, hot, but very stiff and sturdy. I bought a pair the other day that will be lighter and not waterproof, so they’ll breathe better in the heat.  We are already figuring we’ll have to get up and out early every day, to beat the heat, but if we need to do that, that’s ok too.

I’ve also been calling and bugging Yellowstone National Park every few days.  When we booked our reservation there for this summer, we made two separate 11 day reservations, with a 3 day gap between them.  Our thought was that we would try to get there in mid June, but if it was too cold or snowy, we’d cancel and just use the early July reservation.  Now we’ve decided we might as well use both reservations, so we can relax and enjoy the park.  But, we still have a 3 day gap.  So, I call every few days to see if there are any cancelations. The people on the phone are awesome, and apologetic. They encourage me to keep calling- there’s bound to be a cancelation!  Of course, we’re so big, there aren’t many spaces that will fit us, but we’ll keep checking.

So, tomorrow it’s on to Zion National Park. One of the hikes we tried to do there last time, but couldn’t, was The Narrows. Hiking the Narrows is essentially hiking for miles in a river. In order to do the hike, the water flow has to be below a certain level.  Last year it definitely wasn’t.  This year we’ll have to see!