Day 634: Capitol Reef National Park, Day 1

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Ben

We had a nice Shabbos at Forsyth Reservoir. We walked over to the other RV at the lake, a retired couple that lives a few miles away in the town of Fairview, but they come up for the weekend in their RV a couple times a month to get away from the phone.

After a chilly night, we awoke to another beautiful day:

We drove back to Loa to use the Laundromat:

They had three washers and three dryers, one of which only worked intermittently, so we only did half our laundry:

We drove east from Loa, back through Torrey and on to Capitol Reef National Park. The first thing we did was drive the scenic drive in the park:

We headed down the dirt road through Capitol Gorge:

The park also preserves the Mormon settlement of Fruita, which was a private inholding when the monument was established in the 1920s. The last resident left in the late 1960s. The Park Service staff maintain the orchards and fields to give visitors a feeling for what life was like in the ten family settlement:

Not a bad view:

We drove east just outside the park boundary to disperse camp on BLM land. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 632: Boulder, UT to Forsyth Reservoir

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Ben

We woke up to a sunny day at our dispersed camping location on Burr Trail Road in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument:

We drove back to Boulder, then north to Torrey where there’s a great information center. We took advantage of their displays and free WiFi:

We continued west to the town of Loa solely to shop at their grocery store. The town, large for this area with a population of about 500, has the largest store we’ve encountered since leaving St. George almost two weeks ago. We were also able to fill up our water tank at the USFS office in town (thanks!), and dump at a concrete company on the way out of town on our way north to Forsyth Reservoir. This part of the US is so sparsely populated that dispersed camping on a lake shore is not a problem. With our cell booster, we get no AT&T coverage but do have one intermittent bar of Verizon:

I went out for a bike ride, heading north into the mountains:

Looking back down towards Forsyth Reservoir:

At last, the summit:

Good Shabbos from Forsyth Reservoir:

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 631: The Waterpocket Fold and Wingate Sandstone

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Ben

This morning M and I drove a couple miles to the Escalante Airport where I flew post-training flight #49. At 5,700 above sea level, the paramotor provided quite a bit less thrust than at sea level:

B photographed me flying over the RV:

Cleaning up after the landing:

There were plenty of interesting planes at the airport:

I had spotted this pond under an overhang near the RV from the air, so the kids and I hiked out to find it:

We hitched up the RV and drove north to the village of Boulder, then south and east on the Burr Trail. We dropped off the RV in a dispersed camping area along the road, then drove to the end of the pavement, leaving Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and entering Capitol Reef National Park. We turned north on Upper Muley Twist Canyon Road to drive through a wash towards a trailhead:

Careful aim was necessary in a couple places:

We passed Cheerios Double Arch:

Hiking on the trail, we spotted this interesting lizard:

After a half mile or so we reached the Strike Valley Overlook, where we could see the Waterpocket Fold, the largest monocline in North America

The Waterpocket Fold extends for over 100 miles, and we could see it stretch to the horizon to the left and right:

A panorama of the Waterpocket Fold:

M caught me working my inner park ranger:

On the way back to the RV, we stopped at the trailhead for Little Death Hollow Canyon:

The canyon doesn’t get narrow until four miles from the trailhead, but we figured it would make a nice hike anyway:

The sign at the trailhead warned against scaring grazing cows deep into the canyon:

We found some pictographs along the way:

Deeper into the canyon, we found quite a bit of petrified wood:

B found cow remains:

Little Death Hollow is one of a handful of slot canyons in Wingate Sandstone, which is usually too hard to form slot canyons, as opposed to the softer Navajo Sandstone where slot canyons are common. The stones have interesting patterns up close:

Heading back out:

We saw other interesting formations as we drove back to the RV:

We got back to the RV just a bit after sunset. Even with the cellular booster, we have neither Verizon nor AT&T signal here:

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 630: Riding the Escalante Plateau

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Ben

This morning we decided to have a rest day after the days of hiking we’ve been doing. I had a bit left, so I went out for a short morning ride up and down a couple good climbs north of Escalante. At a scenic pullout, I could look down on the road ahead:

After a while I arrived at the top of the second descent:

After riding along the Escalante River for a while, I turned around at the foot of this climb:

For the rest of the day we did miscellaneous tasks around the RV.

Day 629: Hike to Zebra and Tunnel Canyons

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Ben

This morning we went back into town for more groceries. On the way, we stopped at the Escalante Heritage Center, which has a replica of one of the wagons that plunged through Hole in the Rock:

Portraits of the Hole in the Rock traversal:

In the temporary visitor center, we watched a short film about the San Juan Expedition. The center also had a few items on display, including the original switchboard from the town of Escalante:

We perused the farming implements out back:

Driving south on Hole in the Rock Trail, we arrived at the unmarked trailhead for Zebra and Tunnel Canyons:

Off we go:

This puddle in the creek bed sported a few hundred tadpoles. Hopefully they will become frogs before it dries up:

Along the way we found this dry waterfall structure:

Looking into the bowl:

This plant has its roots behind the rock face, where they pop out below:

The kids imitated the sound made by the ants in Them! as taught to them by Bubbe and Zayde:

The “shell” and interior of Moki Marbles, Iron Oxide concretions that fall out of the canyon walls when the softer surrounding Navajo Sandstone weathers away: