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ilanaramaPart 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
In the morning we had blueberry almond pancakes for breakfast, then drove back into the park to the trailhead for Hickman Natural Bridge and the Rim Overlook. It was shortly before 10am and we snagged the last parking spot! There was a brochure with nature trail info, so we stopped at all the markers and I read out the blurbs. The trail to the arch split off the main trail after a short distance, and since it's a relatively short hike (about a mile each way), there were a lot of people on the trail going in both directions. And who could blame them? It's a super dramatic, pretty arch, as you can see (from both directions):
The marked trail goes under the bridge and then loops around to the left, but we continued up the wash to the right, following the instructions in our old guidebook for connecting to the Rim Overlook trail. We could see footprints in the sand so we knew others had gone that way as well. The route wound over and around boulders, but it wasn't steep, though some easy climbing moves were needed to get past a few spots.
But there was nothing scary or hard, and we soon emerged on the white sandstone rim to find cairns leading us to the main trail. We turned left, up the natural ramp, and continued to the very dramatic overlook.
The fields of the historic Mormon settlement of Fruita, and the visitor's center, were just below us - too bad we hadn't brought a paraglider, we could have made it back down in a hurry! (The next photos are from the rim looking down, and from a parking lot near the visitor's center looking back up...)
We returned to our van down the regular trail, making a nice loop. Then we drove farther into the park (back towards Torrey), stopping to look at the petroglyph panels. The park service had constructed nice wooden walkways (to keep people from getting too close and being able to vandalize them) but the walkway railings were covered with caterpillars - the trees in the canyon are very badly infested with tent caterpillars, and many of them are dead or dying. (Click to embiggen, that is, to view the larger version at Flickr, where it's easier to make out the petroglyphs.)
We also stopped to look at the old Fruita schoolhouse, which was built in 1896 and continued to be used for classes until 1941. The NPS has restored the structure to the way it looked in the 1930s.
Then it was time to drive up the "Scenic Drive" into the National Park proper; we had brought our parks pass (Britt bought the Senior Lifetime Pass when he turned 60) but there was nobody at the fee station, just a place to fill out envelopes and put in payment, so very much honor system there. We ate lunch at the Wagon Trail trailhead, just as a place to stop, and then continued to Capitol Gorge to do the hike there.
This is a short hike down a narrow wash in a deep canyon, so of course my GPS was completely wrong. The access road actually goes down the upper part of the wash, which is very spectacular as well. This was the old wagon-train road to Fruita, used by Mormon settlers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and like the peoples who left their symbols carved into the sandstone here, they also wrote their names and the dates into the walls. (Click to embiggen, that is, to view the larger version at Flickr, where it's easier to make out the names and dates.) It was hard to imagine this being a major road!
At one point a side trail went to some potholes (called "The Tanks") and there was a nice little arch there as well:
The sandstone here was beautifully patterned:
We had intended to hike to Cassidy Arch after that, but it was getting late, so instead we drove back out of the park to the east towards Hanksville, and found a place to camp on a dirt road among dirt buttes next to the Fremont River. The sunset was spectacular!
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
In the morning we had blueberry almond pancakes for breakfast, then drove back into the park to the trailhead for Hickman Natural Bridge and the Rim Overlook. It was shortly before 10am and we snagged the last parking spot! There was a brochure with nature trail info, so we stopped at all the markers and I read out the blurbs. The trail to the arch split off the main trail after a short distance, and since it's a relatively short hike (about a mile each way), there were a lot of people on the trail going in both directions. And who could blame them? It's a super dramatic, pretty arch, as you can see (from both directions):
The marked trail goes under the bridge and then loops around to the left, but we continued up the wash to the right, following the instructions in our old guidebook for connecting to the Rim Overlook trail. We could see footprints in the sand so we knew others had gone that way as well. The route wound over and around boulders, but it wasn't steep, though some easy climbing moves were needed to get past a few spots.
But there was nothing scary or hard, and we soon emerged on the white sandstone rim to find cairns leading us to the main trail. We turned left, up the natural ramp, and continued to the very dramatic overlook.
The fields of the historic Mormon settlement of Fruita, and the visitor's center, were just below us - too bad we hadn't brought a paraglider, we could have made it back down in a hurry! (The next photos are from the rim looking down, and from a parking lot near the visitor's center looking back up...)
We returned to our van down the regular trail, making a nice loop. Then we drove farther into the park (back towards Torrey), stopping to look at the petroglyph panels. The park service had constructed nice wooden walkways (to keep people from getting too close and being able to vandalize them) but the walkway railings were covered with caterpillars - the trees in the canyon are very badly infested with tent caterpillars, and many of them are dead or dying. (Click to embiggen, that is, to view the larger version at Flickr, where it's easier to make out the petroglyphs.)
We also stopped to look at the old Fruita schoolhouse, which was built in 1896 and continued to be used for classes until 1941. The NPS has restored the structure to the way it looked in the 1930s.
Then it was time to drive up the "Scenic Drive" into the National Park proper; we had brought our parks pass (Britt bought the Senior Lifetime Pass when he turned 60) but there was nobody at the fee station, just a place to fill out envelopes and put in payment, so very much honor system there. We ate lunch at the Wagon Trail trailhead, just as a place to stop, and then continued to Capitol Gorge to do the hike there.
This is a short hike down a narrow wash in a deep canyon, so of course my GPS was completely wrong. The access road actually goes down the upper part of the wash, which is very spectacular as well. This was the old wagon-train road to Fruita, used by Mormon settlers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and like the peoples who left their symbols carved into the sandstone here, they also wrote their names and the dates into the walls. (Click to embiggen, that is, to view the larger version at Flickr, where it's easier to make out the names and dates.) It was hard to imagine this being a major road!
At one point a side trail went to some potholes (called "The Tanks") and there was a nice little arch there as well:
The sandstone here was beautifully patterned:
We had intended to hike to Cassidy Arch after that, but it was getting late, so instead we drove back out of the park to the east towards Hanksville, and found a place to camp on a dirt road among dirt buttes next to the Fremont River. The sunset was spectacular!
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Date: 2022-05-17 01:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-17 01:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-17 10:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-18 05:28 pm (UTC)