Utah – Capitol Reef National Park – Recreational Hiking and Sight Seeing

Capital Reef is located in the Southern half of Utah, between Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands. We entered the part from the West entrance. There are a few turn-outs before entering the park. Here’s one that we stopped at to take a few photos:

Further up the road is the entrance:

Chimney Rock

The first turn-out after entering the park is Chimney Rock.

There is a better viewing spot, but it was on the other side of the road and I know we’ll be coming back to this park in the future.

There is another pull-out after Chimney rock with a view of the Buttes.

Panoramic Point

Next up is Panoramic point. This has a small trail that goes out to a rocky platform where you can see in all directions.

The road in the background is Goosenecks Overlook

Goosenecks Overlook

Right next to Panorama Point is Goosenecks Overlook. This is a gravel road that leads to a parking lot and a tiny path up a small hill to an overlook.

The Fluted Wall

The next pull-out is called the Fluted Wall.

The Castle

This rock formation definitely looks like a castle.

Blacksmith Shop

The road forks and we took the scenic drive and stopped at the visitor center. The first stop on the scenic drive is the orchards and the blacksmith shop. We stopped at the blacksmith shop because it was the parking area for the Fremont Gorge Overlook trail.

Fremont Gorge Overlook Trail

There is a maintenance road that leads up to the trail. We thought this was the trail.

The road climbs pretty steep but it’s smooth and an easy walk

The 1.8 miles is a lie. It’s really 2.8 miles to the end of the trail.

The trail is pretty steep, so Michelle gets her backpack situated.

The trail starts out as a bunch of stairs

It continues as a steep and gravelly climb

There’s a large boulder at the top of the climb

Looking up the trail, it seems to go on forever

I expected to see Buffalo, but there was no large wildlife here

This area is a large plateau with a panoramic view of cliffs on all sides

It was in the upper 70’s on the day we hiked this. Even so, we still packed our water and salt tablets (oh, and snacks).

At this point it appeared that this trail was going to end on a cliff that overlooked the rest of the park.

Michelle is using her phone to take panoramas. There is no cell service anywhere near this park

Fortunately, most of this trail is flat. It seems to take forever to get to the other end of this plateau

Michelle points out the gorge to the left of us

There’s a large gorge there, but we can’t see much of it yet.

Soon, we see an interesting rock outcropping

Looks like we’re heading for that interesting rock

The trail wraps around that rock and comes in from behind

Don’t let these photos fool ya. We stopped a lot of times to catch our breath.

This is what the trail looks like form behind. We’ll come back later. The main trail continues up the mountain.

Dark clouds moved in, but we didn’t get caught in the rain

From this height, we can see the gorge much better

There’s a large pile of rocks up at the top (just left of the trail). That must be the peak.

Yup. That would be the end of the trail all right. After that is a cliff.

This is why we hike the trails. You can’t see this from the road.

Scenic Drive

Eventually, we arrived at the car and continued our drive down Scenic Drive. Here’s the second pull-out.

One of the pull-outs has a great view of the plateau that we just hiked.

That green mound that cuts through the picture is the plateau

Here’s a wide-angle view of that same direction

Grand Wash

There is a gravel road that splits off from the main road. It has all kinds of warning signs not to enter if the weather looks threatening. The sky was clear and we are driving a truck, so we took that road.

The first stop is a pair of abandoned radioactive mines.

We headed further up the road and there is a small pull-out for the arch.

The arch is difficult to see from here. It’s in the upper right cliff. I thought the arch was that large arc carved out of the cliff on the left, but it doesn’t go all the way through. Therefore, it’s not considered an arch.

There is a large section of rock that looks like it is bolted onto the side of the cliff:

Continuing up the gravel road led to a parking lot. This is where the arch trail begins.

There is only an hour or so of daylight and our legs are tired from the last hike, so we decided to hike down the .3 mile connecting trial.

The trail goes into the river bed and you just follow it around the back side.

Ah! Yikes. There’s the trail head. If the park posts a sign that says “carry water,” then it’s going to be a difficult climb.

Here’s what the beginning of the trail looks like.

According to the sign, this trail climbs 950 feet. Which is a good climb, but it does that in only 1.5 miles. Challenge accepted! We’ll be hiking this trail the next time we come to this park.

Back Story

Utah has five major national parks:

Zion
Bryce Canyon
Canyonlands
Arches
Capitol Reef

Michelle and I have visited each of these parks in our past vacations. Each park was a challenge to see in the limited time that we had for our vacations. Normally, we would get up before the sun comes up and try to see everything we can in one of these parks before the sun goes down. Now that we live in Utah, we know that we can come back. We also have the work week to recover from things like the hike we just took. We managed to cover about 1/3 of Capitol Reef and we’ll start with the Cassidy Arch trail when we return.