05/05/01 Hiking Capitol Gorge:
Capitol Reef National Park is a long, skinny strip of land, presumably filled with canyons and such. Today I did the 20 mile round drive to Capitol Gorge. Instead of the usual dark red sandstone cliff, these were beige. When I got to the end of the drive at Capitol Gorge I found a trail through the gorge that was 4 miles round trip. I didn't want to extend myself but I did want to push myself a little to start getting in shape and this sounded about right.
The trail is through the 50 foot wide gorge with walls approaching 200 feet on either side. A signature wall with lots of signatures from the 1800's and early 1900's is kinda interesting. Of course any signatures more recent are considered graffiti and subject to a $250 fine. Petroglyphs are supposed to be right near there but I missed them. I continued on the trail until I ran out of canyon and things opened up into fields. I guess I probably went an extra mile or so.
05/06/01 Hiking Chimney Rock Trail:
This trail begins a mile or two past the Visitor Center on UT 24. This a three mile loop and while I expected some rise in elevation I didn't think there would be any problems. The trail wound up and up though and I gained 700 feet in the 40 minutes it took me to reach the top of the bluffs.
It was mostly downhill from there and the views were great. Red, sandstone bluffs tower several hundred feet in the near distance and you could see down multiple canyons at the same time.
05/07/01:
Capitol Reef National Park has a pretty high elevation and I thought I might save remaining hikes for later in the summer when things got hot at lower elevations. I had dropped off film several days ago at Wal-Mart's in Springville and decided to go get them.
On the way I passed a PC repair place and decided to drop the laptop off. I dug it out from under a pile of junk and thought it might be worth a try to plug it in and see if anything happened. I did, and it did. It started right up. Go figger.
I stopped off in Price to pick up a prescription and do some laundry and then went on to Springville and got the photos. I also got to see my first prong horn antelope... laying along side the road... roadkill.