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Utah Trip #1: Capitol Reef National Park

I've been very excited about hiking this year. It's been over a year since my knee replacement operation so it's had plenty of time to heal. I lost a lot of weight over the winter to prepare for my dive trips to Bonaire so I am in better shape. I wanted to hike, not just ordinary hikes but big hikes. I have already done a lot through the spring and summer. My biggest achievements were climbing Half Dome in Yosemite, and climbing Alpine Peak in the Sawtooths. There were a lot of other hikes as well. But I had one more big hike planned for this year - doing Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim.

I've hiked from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon down to the river and back up again twice. Way back in the eighties I did it as a backpack, camping overnight by the Colorado River. Staying in the canyon was awesome, and it broke the hike up into two days. It did mean carrying a full pack up the five thousand feet back to the rim though, which was hard work.

In 2017 I did the hike again, this time in a single day. It was a long day, but an incredible experience. What I still had never done was hike from one rim, down into the canyon, and then up to the other rim. I wanted to do it before I got too old so this was the year I was going for it. I talked Sandy into doing the car shuttle. We made reservations to stay at the lodge on the North Rim. From there I would hike down and across the canyon and she would drive the car around to the South Rim. We had reservations there as well. This September I would do it.

Wrong!!!

While driving to Consimworld Expo in July I saw smoke from a fire near the Grand Canyon. Within a week the North Rim was evacuated, the lodge on the North Rim was destroyed and the North Kaibab Trail was closed. So no Rim-to-Rim hike for me this year. Hopefully the trail will be repaired soon and I can do the hike while I am still capable. I'm not optimistic though given how the current administration has drastically cut the budget for the Park Service.

Although our Grand Canyon trip wasn't possible, we still had a dog sitter lined up. We looked at alternatives and came up with a new plan. Bryce Canyon is Sandy's favorite national park and we booked a couple of nights at a lodge in Bryce Canyon City. It wasn't cheap, but we figured we could splurge given that our other plans had been wrecked. Then I suggested that we fill out the week by starting in Capitol Reef National Park, which we both really enjoy. From there we would move to Escalante, and then finally Bryce. Pretty soon we had our reservations made and our new itinerary finalized.

We started our trip on a Friday, driving down to Torrey Utah, the closest town to Capitol Reef National Park. It's only an eight hour drive so it was an easy day. We checked into the Red Sands Hotel and Spa for two nights. It was a nice place, although not outstanding, and it did cost a fair amount given it was a weekend. Too bad that we wouldn't be there long enough to take advantage of the Spa.

Since it was already evening when we arrived, we ate at the Rock Garden Restaurant, which was located inside the hotel. Our dinners were good and hardly anyone was there. That was surprising on a Friday night. I would have thought Torrey would be busy at this time of year. In fall it's not as hot as in summer or as rainy as in winter. I'm not complaining though. Capitol Reef still seems to be one of the undiscovered national parks. It hasn't been overwhelmed yet like Zion or Yosemite. Hopefully it stays that way, at least for a while.

Next day we drove into the park. It was sunny with some clouds in the morning but the forecast was for showers in the afternoon. We decided to hike the Chimney Rock Trail. According to AllTrails.com, it's a 3.6 mile loop with 790 feet of elevation gain. We figured we could finish it before lunch and beat the arrival of any bad weather. It's a trail that we hadn't done before so that was a plus.

There was no long drive to the trailhead either. The parking area is right along US24, the main highway leading through the park. We had driven by it before on previous visits to Capitol Reef. Even though it was still early, we could see threatening clouds in the west when we got out of the car. For now the weather was still good, but we figured we didn't have any time to waste. We grabbed our packs and headed out on the trail.

Chimney Rock is a massive, freestanding rock tower. It's close to, but separate from, the long cliff that lines this portion of the highway. There is a great view of it right from the trailhead, looking up at the tower from the base. The trail winds around and then climbs steeply up onto the mesa, above the cliffs. It reaches another viewpoint where you can look across to Chimney Rock from the top of the cliff just behind it. Although it was kind of cool to be able to see onto the flat top of the tower, I thought the view of Chimney Rock from the trailhead was actually better.

That said, the climb up onto the mesa was still well worth it. There was a great view of the long escarpment to the north and east which had been hidden from below. It was far more impressive than Chimney Rock. The views persisted as the trail crossed the mesa and then dropped back down into the valley behind it. From there it wound it's way back to the start. For the last mile, we could see that dark clouds were coming in rapidly from the west. We were in a race to beat the rain, but we made it easily. We were back to the car in under two hours total for the hike, well before any rain fell.

We went to the visitor center but didn't stay long. There was not one but two big tour busses parked there. It's a small building so that many people was a major overload. Two busloads of old people were really annoying. You could hardly even move in the visitor center and the lines for the bathroom were hopeless. I wanted to check out the park merch but I couldn't even get in the gift shop. We quickly decided to move on and head into Torrey.

Well, there isn't much in Torrey. We went to the Chuck Wagon Lodge which has the nicest store in town. Ok, other than a gas station minimart, it's the only store in town. We picked up some snack foods for later. They even had some tshirts that I could check out. Next we went across the street to the Torrey Trading Post, which had an interesting set of sculptures out front. I got my picture taken with one of the dinosurs so I could send it to my son Tim. He's always taking pictures of himself with his "travelociraptor" when he travels. And when we went inside, it turned out to be a real souvenir store. I even found a tshirt that I liked there. So it was a success.

We had seen signs around town for the Capitol Reef Farmers Market. It was held every Saturday afternoon in season, and here we were, in Torrey on a Saturday. It turned out to be pretty small and we didn't see anything interesting.

Our final stop was at the Color Ridge Creamery for some ice cream. They had a good selection of flavors and we both thought that our ice cream cones were very good. We added it to our list of spots to hit whenever we are in Torrey.

That was it. We had done pretty much everything there is to do in Torrey. Like I said, it's a small town. All that was left was having dinner. It was still early for that, so we went back to the hotel to rest for a bit.

Dinner was at the Rim Rock Restaurant. We've been there several times and like their food alot. Sandy says that they have the best trout. It's not very expensive either. There's even a nice view looking out at the cliffs inside the park. It's just outside of town, only a five minute drive from our hotel. We knew that they opened at five but we must have been hungry, because we were standing outside the door ten minutes early. Needless to say, we were the first ones there. Our dinners were good. I had a steak and Sandy ordered her favorite, the trout. During dinner we overheard the people at the table next to ours talking about Wisconsin. We asked them about it and it turned out they were visiting from there. We mentioned that we had both grown up in Wisconsin and ended up trading some stories with them.

The one blemish was that there were flies in the restaurant that we had to keep shooing away. I don't expect to have to deal with that when I am eating inside. As much as I enjoyed going there in the past, if I went there again and had the same problem, I would probably cross them off my list. If the flies are a problem in the dining area, who knows what they are like in the kitchen.

Back at the hotel, we watched MLB TV and saw the Brewers beat the Cardinals 9-8 in extra innings. An excellent way to finish a great day.

When we got up the next morning the sun was out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was a great day for hiking but it was also a travel day. We had reservations for tonight at a motel in Escalante. It's only about an hour and a half drive from Torrey, so we had most of the day open. We decided to spend it in Capitol Reef and drive to Escalante later in the afternoon.

We drove to the Cassidy Arch trailhead where we could choose a hike from two old favorites. One was Grand Wash. It's a spectacular canyon that cuts all the way through the Waterpocket Fold, the main geologic feature of Capitol Reef National Park, and comes out the other side. It's an easy hike since it's almost totally flat. It's not very long either, only about three miles total if you turn around when the canyon starts to open up at the other end. We have done it before and it's beautiful, but we decided that we were up for a little more of a challenge today.

Instead we opted to do the Cassidy Arch Trail, which is a little more work. It's still not very long, only three and a half miles round trip and about 700 feet of elevation gain. It's a fantastic hike though. It climbs up the side of Grand Wash, traverses along a series of ledges with a steep dropoff below, then climbs up into the complex terrain above the rim of Grand Wash. We somehow managed to get off route. When the trail made a sharp, hairpin turn we followed a lighter but incorrect set of tracks of others before us who had missed the turn. Eventually we managed to get back on track and climb out onto the rim of the canyon. A final stretch across slick rock and we reached the arch.

Cassidy Arch is named for the famous Wild West outlaw, Butch Cassidy. He and his gang, the Wild Bunch, used Grand Wash as a route through the Waterpocket Fold to reach their hideout, Robbers Roost, which was located about fifty miles east of the park, near Hanksville Utah. It's definitely the most impressive arch in the park. It''s extremely photogenic, especially since you can walk out and stand on the top of the arch for a picture. In my office at home I have a poster size print hanging on the wall. It's a photo I took of Sandy standing on top of Cassidy Arch that I took on our first trip to the park in 2011. This year when we reached the arch there were a few other hikers already there, but everyone was polite and took turns so people could get good photos, except for one guy. After waiting for Mr Oblivious to get out of the way got our pictures. Then we had a snack and spent some time just enjoying the view before starting back. The hike down was uneventful. We even managed to stay on the trail and not get lost again.

After our hike we drove further down the park scenic drive, as far as the Capitol Gorge trailhead. Then on our way out of the park we stopped in Fruita. There is an old, very small farmhouse, the Gifford House, that is all that is left of the original pioneer settlement within the park. The local natural history association operates a small shop inside that sells souvenirs. More importantly they sell a few baked goods and I scored a cinamon roll. Sandy also bought some locally made jams there. After that it was time to head to Escalante.

The drive from Torrey to Escalante on US12 is very scenic and we had a beautiful day for it. First it goes over a 9400 foot pass on the side of Boulder Mountain. We stopped at the Larb Hollow Overlook near the pass for a fantastic view over the Waterpocket Fold and Capitol Reef National Park. Then after passing the town of Boulder, we drove through impressive slickrock scenery in Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument before reaching the town of Escalante. Even with stops for photos, we were there by late afternoon.

The first part of our trip had been excellent. Now we figured we would check into our hotel, grab some dinner and then plan our hike for the next day. But things did not all go according to plan in Escalante. I'll cover that in another post.