Capitol Reef Area Hikes 2013

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After an easy two day drive pulling our little "Advanced Base Camp" we are ensconced in the Thousand Lakes RV Park near Torrey, Utah, for a last evening of power and WiFi. Torrey was very breezy and cool on this afternoon.

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It cleared off a bit and some of the surrounding scenery begs the question: Why is THIS not in the National Park?

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Nice cliffs.

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The next morning, we drove the 12 miles into the Fruita campground from Torrey and set ourselves up for five nights. Our trailer is dead center of this photo, taken as we start to climb for an afternoon hike into Cohab Canyon.

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Cohab is a hanging canyon, where Mormons with multiple wives would hide from the authorities. So you have to climb to get into the head of the canyon

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Susie catching her breath on a nice afternoon.

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We're starting to drop into the head of the canyon.

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A tree contrasts with the canyon wall.

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There was a nice slot in a side canyon, so Roger has to check it out, sans pack.

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Looks like a Navajo sandstone cap on top of some Kayenta sandstone.

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After heading down the canyon for perhaps a mile (it is a short canyon), we turned around and hiked out to one of the viewpoints. State Hwy 24 is below.

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Back in "camp," it is time to do a few chores and clean up. A nice afternoon.

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Our friend Will is always taking photos of food and putting such on his photo web site, so, it was our turn to return the favor. It's Friday night, so grilled pizza is on the menu. Life is very good.

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To say this is a Capitol Reef "area" hike might be considered a bit of a stretch, as this is the next day and we have driven to the rim of the Dirty Devil River canyon near Burr Point (about 65 miles from the Park). In 1988, a bunch of us spent a week backpacking in the canyon, having started from Burr Point. http://www.twohikers.org/CanyonCountry/DirtyDevil88/dd88_day1.htm Since then, Susie has always wanted to see the Great Alcove. It is a huge alcove on the canyon wall that, from a distance, looks impossible to hike. But you have to get to it first. So this was our attempt.

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One descends on slickrock between a couple of cairns, and navigates toward a couple of unseen buttes in the top center of the photo.

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Interesting sandstone patterns.

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The view over the rim, looking into the river canyon.

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After about an hour, we got to the crux, which is the knife edge to the left of the center. One has to drop down to that, and then drop off the wall on the left.

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Susie is looking at it, thinking is looks way worse than I had described. Frankly, it looked worse to me than I remember. I did not recall that the canyon fell away so fast on the right side of the knife edge.

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Maybe it was just being 25 years younger, but one can clearly see the light pink sandstone one must descend in the center of the photo, and I was not as comfortable with it now.

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So we turned around and headed for a view of the Great Alcove

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The lunch time view of the Great Alcove, center of the photo.

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A telephoto shot. Based on old photos, I THINK we traversed right below the broken rocks in the center of the photo. But look at the first photo on this page: http://www.twohikers.org/CanyonCountry/DirtyDevil88/dd88_russ.htm

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Having not gotten to our objective, it was a long drive back to Capitol Reef. Susie caught the lighting just perfectly in this photo of the canyon formed by the Fremont River.