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Published: October 28th 2009
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The drive from Bryce to Capitol Reef was uneventful through Utah 12, except there are lots of zig-zag and up hills down hills. It makes you feel like that it will never end, but in a good way. The scenary was beautiful. Most of the hills are red-soiled, with Aspen turning gold in the autumn sun. We watched the west side of Capitoal Reef in the sunset from an overlook before we arrived at Torrey. Stayed overnight at the Best Western right next to the park entrance. The next morning, we headed over to the park.
First stop: Panoramic Point. A very short walk to the overlook point. Here, you get a very nice view in the morning when you look west, where we came from. Everything is bathed in the soft morning ray. This is probably the best spot to watch sunset. A dirt road nearby leads you to two more view points: sunset point and goosenecks, which we stopped by at the end of the day. Standing at this point, for the first time, I truely understand the concept of Canyon country. Everything is on a grand scale, so vast and open, endless rolling hills formed by red
and white sandstones, with a lonely pine tree here and there decorating the canyon. It is quite breath-taking.
Further down the road, you will see Twin-rocks, Chimney rocks, Petroglyph, Fruita school house and the Castle, which is a group of red-orange Wingate sandstones sitting on hills of gray-greenish Chinle formation. We decided to start our first hike at Burro wash trail head, one of the three trails to see slot canyons. Heading south on the Notom-Bullfog road, the trail head is on the right side of the road, next to a small parking area. During the entire three hour hikes, we only saw 2 hikers, and 2 people on the 4x4, plus two dogs. The trail is pretty leveled, but very sandy, so you can't really go very fast. On the way, we saw many tumble weeds, some flowering plants that looked like desert gold, and tones of rocks in different sizes, shapes and colors, which is quite amazing. After making a wrong turn or two, we came to the narrow part, which had a puddle right in front of it. We managed to climb over the puddle and proceeded for another few yards or so, and then there
was really no way up without the help of ropes. Plus it was getting mudding. On the way back, we saw a cave in making, with calcium carbonate growing on the rocks and green lichens. A grasshopper jumped in my way and decided to pose for me.
Turning back to the visit center and got onto the scenic drive, we decided to make one more hike at Cohab canyon. This trail can further extent to Frying Pan Trail which is more streneous but with better views. The beginning part of Cohab canyon hike is a very steep up, which brings you face to face to this sheer wall of Wingate sandstone when you come to the top. The sandstones form a narrow gate, through which, you arrive at the hidden canyon. The view looking back is quite awesome. You see the camping sites dotted by golden autumn trees, a barn, some horses, and more mountains in the distance. The floor of the canyon is laid with golden sand, which came from the errosion of the golden cliffs on the sides. The sand makes a nice contrast with the lush green plants growing out of it. In this canyon country,
everywhere I looked, I saw this dramatic color contrast, which is hard to depict even with the finest camera. At the split where we could either go to a overlook looking back at Fruita, or further down, we decided to turn right onto Frying Pan Trail. It was getting dark, and I wanted to get out of the canyon before the sun goes down. After consulting with a couple of hikers coming from Grand Wash directions, we decided to venture a bit further until we came to this amazing view point. So ahead of us, there is another canyon dipping down, different from the one we came from in that there are lots of different rock formations. One looked like a muffin, one looked like a old man with straw hat. Distant on the right side, there are two jagged mountains, overlapping a little bit.The front one is orange at bottom, Navajo at the top. The back one is red at the bottom, grayish at the top. They make such a nice contrast against each other. Behind them further out, we could make out the silhouettes of yet other mountains, with the blue sky as the back-drop.
Turning back
to hotel, we stopped by the Sunset point. This is not a good day for sunset since it turned cloudy during the afternoon. But overall it is a day full of nice surprises.
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