Capitol Reef (Day 3 & 4)

Friday morning we headed out to another hike in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The scenic drive out itself was well worth it. From aspen and pine forests to canyon cliffs, we throughly enjoyed the majesty of the landscapes surrounding us along the way.

Friday's hike was about 6 miles round trip to the Lower Calf Creek Falls. My whole family went along. The trail would have been easy, except there were many stretches of deep sand along the trail. Hiking through those, especially with Austin our backs, was quite tiring. We were again well rewarded for our efforts though. Not only were there plenty of things of interest along the trail (canyon walls streaked with desert varnish, bright wildflowers, beaver dams, some Indian petroglyphs, ancient granaries built into the canyon walls), the waterfall itself was beautiful and refreshing.

Petroglyphs on canyon wall across from the trail

First view of waterfall through trees from the trail

Lower Calf Falls

Apparently, the pool below the waterfall is a popular place for swimming. Even if we had brought our swimming suits, I don't know how much swimming I really would want to do there; the water was very cold. However, we spent a fair amount of time at the falls wading in the water, taking pictures, and enjoying the scenery. Austin absolutely loved playing in the sand.

Hiking back to the beginning

By far the worst part of this trail was the parking lot. It was constructed very poorly. The heat caused shallow puddles of sticky tar to form all over the place. The tar was nearly impossible to avoid. It stuck to the bottom of our shoes like stringy bubble gum and got tracked all over our car despite our efforts to prevent getting it all over.

Later that evening we went out for pizza and then drove back up to Sunset Point with high hopes of seeing the effects of the sunset that we had missed the night before. To our disappointment, it was far to cloudy for the sun to light up the rocks as it set. We still enjoyed the short hikes to the Gooseneck Overlook and Sunset Point though. The Goosenecks refer to the deep slot canyon right below the viewpoints.

View of Goosenecks from Goosenecks Overlook

Goosenecks from Sunset Point

View from Sunset Point

 

The sunset

Looking up the sheer walls of the narrows section

Saturday morning after packing up and checking out of the hotel we headed back to the park for one more short hike along the Grand Wash. As the name implies, this trail was really just a dry wash through a canyon. In the middle, there is a short narrows section. It was really a beautiful stroll through a interesting narrow canyon.

In the Narrows Section

Message we left for my brother in the dirt

Since there are trail heads at both sides of the canyon, our family split up into two groups. Each group parked and started hiking at opposite ends. We met somewhere in the middle, traded keys, and then all met back up at the visitor's center when we were done.

Allan standing right outside Narrows Section

After that, we headed back home. We did stop for some ice cream at the Red Barn on the way back though. Overall, we hiked about 21 miles in total, saw lots of amazing scenery, and had a great time.

Capitol Reef Trip (Day 1 & 2)

Last Wednesday we headed out for a trip to Capitol Reef with my family. It was a trip we had been planning and talking about for a couple years, but we wanted to wait until Ben was back from his mission to go. Most of our day was spent getting to the park, but we did have some time after arriving that afternoon to see some petroglyphs in the park. There was actually a boardwalk built along a canyon wall that was covered with them. Some of them were hard to spot. When someone in the family found a new one, it was sort of like a "Where's Waldo" game for the rest of us trying to find the same drawings they had discovered.

There were actually quite a few butterflies around that we saw on our trip. I was lucky to capture a photo of the one above.

Here we are on the boardwalks

After seeing the petroglyphs we stopped by the old historic schoolhouse of Fruita. It was cool to see the classroom through the windows set up as it would have been before it was abandoned.

Here we are next to the schoolhouse.

Looking inside the schoolhouse

Wednesday night we headed up to Panorama Point and looked at the stars. It is amazing how well you can see them out there away from all the lights. We picked out constellations and my dad brought his brand new telescope and found some cool stuff for us to view through it. We saw star clusters, galaxies, and Saturn. Saturn was especially cool since we could see its rings and one of its moons clearly through the telescope.

Thursday we went hiking. We first did the Hickman Bridge Trail with my whole family.

Hickman Bridge

Hickman Bridge side view

From there, Allan, Ben, Nate, and I continued on to hike the Rim Overlook/Najavo Knobs Trail. The rest of my family watched Austin for us since the trail was too long to take him with us. This was a very exposed and sunny trail without any shade, and it was longer than stated on the information we had for it. By the time we got back to the parking lot, we had gone 11 miles and were pretty tired. It was worth the effort though. Not only were there nice rock formations along the way, the views were spectacular, particularly at the end. And we had a lot of fun along the way too.

View of Fruita from the Rim Overlook

View looking out from the Rim Overlook

Here we are at the Rim Overlook

View of the Castle rock formation from the trail

Hiking up the slick rock fields on the canyon rims

View from top looking southeast

Here we are at the top!

View from top looking northwest

This rock cairn is made with a log of petrified wood at its base

Since we were so hot and tired after our hike, we returned to the hotel and went swimming. We took Austin swimming with us. It was his first time swimming. He loves taking baths, so I was thinking and hoping he would love being with us in the big pool. Unfortunately, the hotel's pool was pretty cold and Austin didn't like it much at all. We will have to take him again sometime in warmer water.

Here is Austin first getting into the water:

Austin became a little bit happier with time:

But he never really became happy with the cold water. So, it was a short swim.

That evening we went up to Sunset Point in hopes of actually watching the sunset. We got there too late to see much though, but Nate took this video showing where we hiked from across the way: