Capital Reef

May 12, 2014

We left Bryce Canyon at 9:30 for our drive to Torrey, UT. We arrived at around 1. Most of the drive was on a scenic byway. It wasn’t a white knuckle drive…just beautiful scenery through the Dixie National Forest. Saw mule deer, snow, and a pretty reservoir along the way. The summit elevation was 9600 feet.

Pretty drive through Dixie National Forest

Elevation 9600

 Mule Deer

We’re staying at Thousand Lakes RV Park and we really had a hard time getting into a campground in this area. So we are staying at a dry site for tonight and then moving to a water/electric site for tomorrow night.

 Our campground had a view of snow capped mountains...

...and beautiful red rocks.

After we settled in at the campground, we went to the Visitor’s Center at Capital Reef for the usual…maps and orientation movie.

Then we drove the jeep to the furthest point in the park to hike the Capital Gorge Trail (2.4 miles round trip). The hike through the canyon was beautiful and it lead past petroglyphs inscribed on the cliff walls. There was a short climb on the trail to see the “tanks”, waterholes in the otherwise dry stream bed. The tanks had tadpoles living in the water and you could hear the adult frogs croaking nearby.

 Capital Gorge Trail

 Beautiful canyon views

Dave pointing out the petroglyphs

 Huge walls of rock

 Trail to the Tanks

 It was hard to find the trail in places. If not for cairns here and there, we'd be lost.

 One of the tanks, 3-4 feet deep. We could see hundreds of tadpoles along the edges.

 More tanks in the rocks

After that hike we drove the jeep to the Gifford House which is now home to a museum but it was closed when we got there so we parked in the lot and hiked the Fremont River Trail (3-mile roundtrip). As the name of the hike suggests, we walked along the river to a steep climb up Danish Hill for panoramas. Wendy wasn’t enjoying the steep climb up the hill, so we only went about halfway up and then came back down.

The Fremont River trail took us through orchards. By the turn of the century, this town was known as "the Eden of Wayne County". In 1902, the name of the settlement was changed to Fruita. As each fruit crop comes into season, fruit becomes available to the public on a pick-your-own basis. Fruit consumed in the orchards is free.

 Fremont River

Danish Hill

It was getting late, so we headed back to the campground for dinner.

May 13, 2014

We ordered some muffins from the campground store to pick up this morning. So Dave went and got those at 8 this morning. They were…eh. We thought they’d be something special since they made a big deal out of them and they were $1/muffin. We got six and they looked and tasted like store bought mix muffins. We at least thought they’d be fresh out of the oven. We think they made them the night before…L

Anyway, we noticed that the people who are in our water/electric site had already left so we pulled in the slides and moved.

Once we were settled in again, we went to the NP and hiked the Chimney Rock loop trail (3.6 mile round trip). It was a hike with a 590’ elevation gain that gave us good views of the area and the beautiful red rocks. We finished up that hike at around 1 so went back to the RV for lunch and to throw a pork roast into the crockpot.

 The beginning of Chimney Rock trail

 The chimney rock from the top of the trail. The parking area and road into the park are below.

 Dave looking at a recent rock slide

The park is named for the exposed monocline which acts as a "reef", or barrier to both human movement and water. The Fremont River is one of the only breaches of the "reef". In the photo above you can see the rock layers are tilted due to the folding which formed the monocline, then eroded to make the barrier.  The "capital" comes from a mountain/formation along the reef that somewhat resembles the capital building in D.C.  We had a hard time spotting it.

This sheriff's car was parked in different places in the small town of Torrey. Not very talkative but made us laugh every time!

We headed to the NP again at around 3 and hiked the Hickman Bridge Trail (2 miles round trip) to view the 133-foot natural bridge. It was a hot hike and we were dying to find shade along the trail! There wasn’t much to find. But the sweaty hike was worth it! The bridge was gorgeous!

 We thought this was the bridge at first.

It was a nice place to get some shade

But it turned out we had to go a little farther to see this

Then we drove to the Petroglyph Panel to see the ancient art carved into the Wingate sandstone. The panels include images of anthropomorphs and bighorn sheep. Very cool!

 Petroglyphs

These are harder to see, but there's a big horned sheep in this panel.

Our last stop was the old Fruita Schoolhouse, a small one room building with the original desks, books, etc. that teachers and students used. The teachers usually lasted only one year due to the isolation of the location.

The Fruita Schoolhouse, in pretty good shape for being built in 1896!

Inside the schoolhouse. Dave's in the window across the room. Do you think he misses teaching?

Headed back to the campground and since they opened the pool today…Dave took a swim and relaxed his aching legs.

We are almost caught up, look for more when we find wifi again.