Cross-Country Vacation
Day 4: Capitol Reef
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
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Day 4 began back in Bryce Canyon. I got up early to check out the sunrise but it was not all that spectacular, so I did not bother to drive back to Sunrise Point. But we did go back to the park visitor center so that Cheryl could get her brochure stamped. Something we learned at Zion was that the national parks have postmark stamp that you can apply to your postcards before you mail them or to anything else you might want to stamp.
Then we continued our journey across Utah's scenic highway 12. We only went a few miles, though, before we got off and took an excursion on this local road. We went to check out Kodachrome Basin State Park. With a name like kodachrome we figure it had to be quite colorful.
Unfortunately as you can see that was not really the case, but we did have a nice look back towards Bryce Canyon.
We got back on eastbound highway 12 and eventually made a pit stop by the Blue Hills overlook.
In the town of Escalante we stopped at the visitor center for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and Mary rode the lizard.
The Escalante National Monument area is very large without much development. There are only a couple of roads going across it and some of them are recommended only for 4x4 vehicles. So we just drove along route 12 hoping to see what we could of the Grand Staircase.
Just before the town of Boulder highway 12 goes up what they call the Hog's Back. It is a narrow climb with several hundred foot drop-offs only a few feet from either side of the road.
We stopped for a burger in Boulder and then continued the climb up route 12. It goes up and over the boulder mountain range and through a lush green portion of the Dixie National Forest where the temperature was nice and cool and we could see rain off in the distance.
Finally we descended toward the town of Torrey and got our first glimpses of Capitol Reef.
We crossed over the Fremont River and turned onto highway 24 and stopped at a Panorama Point and Goosenecks Overlook.
There is a scenic drive that turns off of 24 and runs along beside what is called the Waterpocket Fold. We stopped at the Visitor Center at the turnoff to the scenic drive and I overheard the ranger talking about a dirt road at the end of the drive that went a couple of miles back into a gorge. Considering some of the dirt road adventures we had on other trips, I was not sure that everyone else would be excited by that, but Cheryl had overheard the ranger too and said that it sounded like something we should not miss.
As it turned out, I think driving into the gorge was one of the neatest things we did all trip.
On the way back out we stopped at an apple orchards. The area is actually named Fruita, and there were something like 17 orchards in the park. They rotate them so that one or two are always open for picking. So stopped and picked ourselves some delicious apples.
There were a couple of other stops that I wanted to make in Capitol Reef, such as checking out the Capitol Dome and some old Native American petroglyphs. But it was heading into evening by now and we had at least another 100 miles to go to get back to civilization where we could spend the night. I snapped one last photo as we headed east on 24.
Originally when we made out the itinerary we had an option of going either north to Green River or circling south to Blanding or Monticello. There were some sights to the south, such as Glenn Canyon and Natural Bridges National Monument. But the northern route was shorter and quicker, and the previous three days had been long ones so everyone wanted to turn in early tonight.
We made it to Green River around 8:30 as I recall, checked into a Best Western and had dinner at the restaurant next door. I ordered a sandwich of some sort that sounded simple enough but somehow took a long time to prepare, though, so once again we waited awhile for the food. From then on the rest of the trip I made a point of telling the waiter or waitress just to bring out the food whenever it was ready and not wait for one order if it was taking longer.
Kodachrome Basin State Park: Website
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument: Website
Capitol Reef National Park: Website, Map
Day 4 Summary:
Start: Junction UT-12 and UT-63 near Bryce Canyon National Park
End: Green River, UT
By way of: Escalante, Boulder, and Fruita, UT
Route: UT-12, UT-24, I-70
Approximate Driving Distance:
This Day: 270 miles
Total: 1055 miles
Next: Day 5: Arches
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