CAPITOL REEF

When on road trips in the rural USA food and shelter can be quite chancy. The first two nights of this trip we had less than adequate motels and didn't sleep well, so we were delighted to find a nice motel in the tiny town of Torrey, near the entrance to Capitol Reef National Park. The Austin Chuck Wagon General Store and Lodge was new but built on the site of an 1800's homestead. And we continued to be delighted this morning to discover on the way out of town a candy shop which served homemade breakfast, espresso drinks and had wi fi. This in a town with no restaurant.

Torrey is right at the cross roads of our lovely Highway 12 and Highway 24, the route through Capitol Reef.



Shortly we were in Capitol Reef National Park and hiking up a trail to "Goosenecks Overlook."


I figured Goosenecks was another name for a rock formation but, no, it refers to the meanders in the river.

At the Visitors Center we learned that Capitol Reef was formed 65 million years ago when two tectonic plates collided and thrust the Colorado Plateau up in the air, forming the 100 mile long Waterpocket Fold, which starts in Capitol Reef and ends in Glen Canyon near Lake Powell.

This park isn't just about geology but also about preserving the local history of the pioneering Mormons who settled here and had successful fruit orchards. Visitors can stop in at the historic Gifford Farm House and see how the settlers lived, while sampling home made preserves.

Capitol Reef has a lovely scenic drive on blacktop with lots of off-shoot gravel roads and trails. Every time we got out to walk around I was struck once again by the peacefulness and solitude. It was utterly quiet.


We had been expecting rain all day but instead were treated to some really spectacular cloud formations.


We took several of the gravel drives (which had warning signs not to enter if a storm was imminent due to flash flood danger) and got to see some amazing things like this Yellow Bellied Marmot

the only wild flowers blooming,

a window in the rocks,

and this Easter Island-like face.

I think what really strikes me about this park more than any of the others we have been to so far is the variety - in color, shape and texture.


Also in this park are petroglyphs made by early peoples now called Fremont because no one knows who they were. The predominant theme is big horned sheep and these large men-monsters.


There are quite a lot of these carvings in the stone but there used to be many more. The rock continues to slough off in large slabs and I am sure there are many more petroglyphs lost under the tons of rock.

Finally we saw the namesake rock, Capitol, so called because it reminded the early explorers of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC.

Jim and I would love to drive the full 100 miles length of Waterpocket Fold when we have our van and can camp along the way. It can't be traversed fully in this season because some parts of the road are impassable due to high water over the roadway. We did travel along the blacktop section and some of the gravel road before turning back. Here is some of the Fold with the Henry Mountains in the background.

And some more fabulous rock formations standing all by themselves.

We spent nearly all day driving and walking around in Capitol Reef and can't wait to come back here and spend weeks camping and exploring. We reluctantly moved on as the day was getting on, we hadn't eaten lunch and didn't know where we were going to spend the night. There are not a whole lot of towns in this area.

As we climbed out of the Capitol Reef Basin the plateau widened out and the rocks changed from rainbow to white and grey.

Our destination - Green River near the jumping off point for Arches National Park. Green River was by far the largest town we had seen in days but many of the stores and restaurants were boarded up so we asked the receptionist at the motel for a recommendation. He said Ray's Tavern has the best food in town. We took his advice and found the street in front of Ray's packed with cars and inside most of the tables full. Clearly, this was the place to be! The menu was one page only but the food was excellent, quick and plentiful and we were stunned by the low price of the bill.

Tomorrow, Arches.

Audrey

BRYCE AND KODACHROME

Jim and I had camped at Bryce Canyon years ago so we knew we weren’t going to spend a lot of time there today. But the first view we saw from Sunset Point still took our breath away - both literally and figuratively because there was a very cold wind blowing hard.



At 8,800 feet it is still winter here and the snow makes the gorgeous red rock formations stand out even more. Paiute legend says that this valley was full of bad people and Coyote turned them in to stone.

Deeper into Bryce we were treated to this wonderful sight:

These were two of a family of 8-10 deer and they were totally confident that this was their road.

We backtracked out of Bryce and headed for new territory on the scenic Hwy 12 - Kodachrome Basin State Park. This area was named for the Kodak film of the same name during the 1949 National Geographic expedition of the area. We checked out was a trail to Shakespeare Arch. The first thing we noticed as we got out of the car was the incredible silence. We had the park to ourselves. Here’s the trail.

I found that some of the rock formations here looked a lot like real things, like this “camel”

and this Indian Chief. It was so quiet on the trail that when the sound of a light wind came up it was a bit eerie. At the end of the trail I spied Shakespeare Arch.


Even with his bad knee Jim made it far enough down the trail to see some of the basin country.



No matter where you look in Kodachrome Basin State Park you see fabulous formations, rainbow colors and broad vistas.


After this peaceful park we continued onward on Highway 12 through Escalante National Wilderness. We had thought Highway 9 was scenic but Highway 12 outdoes it!



Not many towns out here and we were getting hungry. A very tiny town called Boulder had a restaurant which was open and featured home made food. I saw this interesting item on the menu but chose not to sample it.

The homemade turkey taco that I had was quite tasty and too filling to try the dessert of “Cajun Blueberry Pie.”

Our day had started at 8,800 feet, dropped down below 6,000 feet, gone back up over 8,800 feet, back down to 7,700 feet and now we hit a pass above tree line at 9,600 feet. As we came back below the treeline we were treated to this beautiful site

and then this over view of the northern edge of the Escalante National Wilderness looking toward the Henry Mountains.


It’s hard not to think about early pioneers and covered wagons when in this country. I have nothing but admiration for their tenacity. I am sure I would have felt very discouraged to come over top of the Henry Mountains and be faced with miles upon miles of deep canyon lands.

Tomorrow we check out Capitol Reef and maybe Arches.

Audrey

RED ROCK COUNTRY

Those of us living in Sonoma County, California are fortunate to have air service from our own Charles M. Schulz Airport in northern Santa Rosa, a 15 minute trip, at the most, from our house. We have had flights to Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and Las Vegas for quite a few years now by one commercial carrier, Horizon Airlines. Recently Horizon, owned by Alaska Airlines, announced a new service to San Diego starting in June. This is great, except they are discontinuing the Las Vegas run because of the limitation on number of flights from our little airport. Jim and I thought we would take advantage of one of these last few flights to Las Vegas and use it as a jumping off place for the canyon country of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

We left Santa Rosa on a rainy day and arrived in Las Vegas to party cloudy and warm. We wanted to get out of Las Vegas before looking for a place for lunch. In the little town of Mesquite we found the perfect place.

We had the universal small town America professional waitress - the kind that is older, incredibly efficient and calls you "honey." She made up for the fact that we were eating small town American food. As always, I was amused by the signage. Read it carefully as you consider the importance of punctuation.


Of course I had to lose a few bucks in the nickel slot machines.

As we left this town we were suddenly, unexpectedly and briefly in Arizona and got our first glimpse of canyon lands.

We were on the very scenic Highway 9 East on our way to Zion and shortly arrived in Utah. Jim hadn't been to Zion before and the last time I was there was in 1962 as a very young person. We were so happy to be coming in to the park in March before all the crowds. If you come here during high season, which starts next month, you park your car and take a shuttle on the scenic drive. We got to do the drive in our rental car and pulled over many times to take photos of great views such as this:


Zion follows the twists and turns of the Virgin River. Near the end of the scenic drive I decided to go on the river walk while Jim took a nap in the car.

The scenery was so amazing I had to stop frequently for photos.

Here's the river again.

On this 2 mile walk I heard German, Chinese, some sort of Slavic language that was not Russian and I walked behind an East Indian family who sounded like they were from California. There were kids in strollers, kids in backpacks, young folks jogging and old folks with canes.

This interesting shiny black strip which I thought looked a lot like onyx is actually a seep in the rock.

I was quite surprised that I didn't see a lot of birds or other animals on this walk, since it was right near the river. I did see one raven, a few squirrels and then this wonderful woodpecker. It was quiet enough to hear the tap-tapping of his beak on the tree.

After our scenic drive tour of Zion we headed out of the park toward the north east. This drive proved to be just as lovely as the designated "scenic drive." As our road climbed we started seeing more snow on the high cliffs,

while we were in shirt sleeves with the windows rolled down.




When we saw this, we had to stop because it looked man made but it also looked impossible - a tunnel to nowhere.



Luckily there was a roadside plaque which explained it.



I was pretty excited to see this mile long tunnel which was made in 1930, so I had my camera ready and the window rolled down (and yes, I was driving and there was no stopping in the tunnel).

I had never fully realized how long a mile long tunnel is and how dark it is inside. Now I understand the need for and value of the window we had seen from down below the tunnel.

The tunnel is so dark and so narrow that bicycles are not allowed inside. After the long tunnel we went into several shorter tunnels...

and when we came out on the other side the terrain was quite different.

Suddenly we had pine trees and lighter colors rocks. Our road continued to climb up and up and finally we came to the pass which was at 7,700 feet. As we headed down the other side our beloved Highway 9 ended at Mt Carmel Junction where we could go right to Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon or left to Bryce Canyon. We turned left. Within a half hour were seeing totally different rock formations, and I knew we were getting close to Bryce.



Tonight we are hunkered down at a huge hotel, restaurant, general store and gas station complex right outside Bryce National Park so we are poised to enjoy the park first thing tomorrow.

Until then,

Audrey