Friday, Oct 14 - To Capitol Reef National Park

Jared outdid himself this morning by serving yogurt and jam, raspberry scones and eggs baked  in cream and cheese and served in individual tiny frying pans.  We left at nine and, following Jared’s advice, turned off Beehive 12 onto the Burr Trail, a small road through steep red walls where we stopped after 11.5 miles at an unmarked spot by a huge cottonwood tree in front of the entrance to a slot canyon.  We walked inside the spectacular narrow passageway and could see a small bit of blue sky high above us.  Jared told us to sing or shout which made a wonderful musical echo!

Slot canyon

 

We returned to the car and continued on through yet more beautiful scenery, some stretches of juniper/sagebrush, until the road became gravel and we arrived at a  steep drop off where we zig-zagged down six hairpin curves to the southern end of Capitol Reef National Park.  Hil drove north through this long, narrow park with very little traffic.  We were paralleling the monocline called the Waterpocket Fold, the largest geological feature of this type in North America, and the reason for the park’s existence, which appeared to me to be a long high ridge of beautiful rocky structures.  You have to remind yourself not to get blasé with all the endless beauty, but sometimes it really is too much!!  You can’t appreciate it all!!

 

The road goes outside the park and parallels it through farm and ranch land before turning left on Beehive 24 and going into the middle section  of Capitol Reef where the park buildings and  historic structures are.  We stopped at the Visitor Center and watched a 20 min movie which explained some of the geological features.  

 

In the Park

We drove out of the park toward the town of Torrey which consists mainly of tourist hotel and cafes with beautiful old cottonwoods along Main Street.   At 2:45 we pulled into the Capitol Reed Resort where we had reserved a two-bedroom cabin, but were told it wouldn’t be ready until 4 PM.  So we decided to drive through town, but we were delayed by so-called road construction of which we could could see no sign, but regardless, we had to wait for a pilot truck to escort us into town.  We found the Chuck Wagon market/hotel/laundromat, bought some toiletries and found a nice 4-machine laundry room.

We returned to the Resort and finally got into our cabin.  Unfortunately, we have to park almost 600' from our door …but a nice man with an electric truck hauled our suitcases, etc. to our very nice 2-bed 2-bath spiffy cabin with a great view of nearby red canyon walls! 

 

We needed to do laundry (our large resort only has One machine) so we decided to get dinner early and took our laundry bags with us.  Bob wanted a rib eye steak, so we waited for the pilot truck once again to get us past the non-existent construction and  pulled into the Broken Spur Steakhouse and ordered steaks.  Although there was a neon Bud sign on the wall…No beer!   New owners, so no liquor license yet!    Dinner was OK… we got back to the friendly Chuck Wagon, and threw our clothes into machines. Nearby was the Color Ridge Creamery where we got exotic (juniper berry/lavender & honey) ice cream desserts, and soon our laundry was clean!   Back to our cabin and bed.