Red Rock Adventures

The Earth is still on fire and the justice system is trash, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t have a little fun, right?

This post is primarily going to be a photo recap of this past weekend we spent in Capitol Reef National Park, but let’s see if I have any updates before we dive into that.

I’ve received a number of rejections from recent job applications but don’t worry, I’m not letting it get me down. Now that Katie has safely arrived in Maryland, I feel even more lonely and dejected that I’m missing Thanksgiving with my entire family. I 100% did this to myself by moving to virtually the complete opposite end of the country, but it’s still hard to be away from everyone else, especially around the holiday. A couple of special hiking trips, like the aforementioned trip to Capitol Reef NP, and holiday Oreos are getting my through it. Plus, there’s only 31 days until Ian and I come home for Christmas :)

Okay that’s enough of being sad, time to tell you about our red rock adventures in southern Utah.

First, some context - There are five national parks in Utah, commonly referred to as “the mighty five.” Capitol Reef is the least popular of all of them. I’m not sure why, but the poor park always gets overshadowed by more famous (and more crowded) parks like Arches and Zion. Also, November is the off-season for national parks, and we are intentionally visiting these places with the hope that they will be less busy than the warmer months.

After work on Friday we drove 3 hours south to the Capitol Reef Resort, a pretty standard but exactly what we needed hotel close to the entrance of the park. There was not a whole lot going on around there, but it was a great place to stay to hike the park since we weren’t prepared for winter camping. With lows in the 20s-30s at night, we decided to shell out the extra cash rather than have our first serious camping trip involve freezing our butts off.

We woke up at normal work type on Saturday (between 5:00-5:30 AM) so we could get to the trail early and beat the crowds. The sun rises around 7:00 AM nowadays, and we arrived to the trailhead a little before 7:30. We were the only ones in the parking lot. For a Saturday at one of the mighty five, this was pretty surprising, but we weren’t about to complain.

The hike we did started on the Cohab Canyon trail to the Frying Pan trail to Cassidy Arch for a whopping total of just shy of 10 miles. We never did figure out why the frying pan was called that, or why Capitol Reef is called that, but it was incredibly cool despite the lack of fun facts.

This hike was otherworldly. It felt like you were walking on Mars or through a dessert planet from Star Wars or another post-apocalyptic movie. You walk through these washes where rain or wind or some other type of erosion or who knows what carved these paths through gigantic rock formations of various shades of red, brown, grey, and the occasional purple. There are cacti and pine trees in inconceivable places. It’s absolutely stunning. This little paragraph doesn’t do it justice, but please enjoy the photo dump.

A secret erosion tunnel between the rocks

The pointy rock in the middle is called Fern’s Nipple. We don’t know who Fern is or what was so special about her nipple, but that’s seriously the official name of that rock formation.

A father/daughter duo from Pennsylvania offered to take our photo on top of the arch.

Pretty incredible, huh? After our 10 mile trek, we took a break at a picnic area near the car and had some PB&Js. Then we made our way to an obligatory trip to the visitors’ center so Ian could buy a zillion stickers and I could get a commemorative postcard, as we always do.

Anybody know what this weird turkey-looking this is? It was pecking around while we ate lunch.

Next stop was a quick pull-off to see the petroglyphs from the Native Americans who inhabited the area between 300-1300. No crazy hiking here, but there was a short boardwalk where you could see what was left of the petroglyphs.

These are very faint, but you can still see them.

Our next and final stop for the day was Hickman Bridge, a quick, two mile hike to a natural land bridge. No idea who Hickman was, but the bridge was pretty cool. Also, if anyone knows what the difference is between an arch and a natural land bridge, please advise.

We ran into (figuratively, not literally) a family of deer between the petroglyphs and Hickman bridge. This guy was the last to cross the road and turned around and gave me the biggest stink eye stare down ever when I started driving before he walked the last two steps across the street.

Hickman Bridge, not as cool as Cassidy Arch, but still pretty darn cool. The echo here was pretty wild too.

After all was said and done, we had hiked about 12 miles and were absolutely beat. I fell asleep at 7:30 that night. Needless to say, after a full work week followed by a full day of hiking, we were tired.

Did that stop us from doing it all again the next day? Absolutely not! Except this morning we had a nice, leisurely 5 mile stroll through the Grand Wash. We saw a big horned sheep and a lot of cool nature.

How did the rock erode this way? It’s mind-boggling.

Man-made or natural? We’ll never know, but it was creepy nonetheless.

Same trail, different lighting, different rock.

Such a fun weekend! Since we won’t be home for Thanksgiving this year, we decided to take another trip south to Moab, Utah to visit Arches NP and Canyonlands NP. We’ll head down after work on Wednesday and come back Saturday night. Moab has a bit more going on than the small town where Capitol Reef is, and is a tourist destination in and of itself. We’re sad not to be with family but excited to visit new places and see some cool things.

Happy Thanksgiving, however you spend it. We’re grateful for the opportunity to be spending it doing the things we love since we can’t be with the people we love.

Let the countdown to Christmas in Maryland begin! Only 31 days :)

Thanksgiving Photo Dump

Career Conundrums & Some Snow