We hiked to see a natural bridge while in Capital Reef, the Hickman Bridge. It was 1-mile to the bridge (and then 1 mile back!) and mostly uphill to get to the bridge formation. We got winded but had a great time on this hike. We saw lots of rock formations in weird shapes, and learned about an ancient volcano many miles to the west whose lava flow was carried into the area by flooding, so the hillsides are strewn with black rocks that don’t belong with the red and white rocks of the area.

The bridge was fantastic! It’s very high and wide and the trail goes under the bridge itself so you can see it from several angles. I suppose people could hike up the hills and walk across the top, but there are signs saying to stay on the trail! We did see people who had hiked to nearby hilltops on another trail – but that was several miles long and we aren’t as young as we used to be!

Here are some pictures we took on this hike:

While staying in Torrey, UT, we took a drive to drive through the contryside nearby. We took a road north of a nearby town called Loa where my brother and his family used to live. It’s very pretty country, lots of fields and horses and cattle. It’s very green due to the irrigation – where it’s not irrigated the land is very dry this time of year (Sept). Our drive took us way up into the nearby hills where we saw hillsides of aspen trees turning gold and red, and a couple of small lakes.

And, the RV Park where we stayed had a great view of red cliffs that had eroded into weird shapes. Here are pictures of our drive and of the view from our RV windows:

On our first trip into Capital Reef we drove along the main road and also down the “Scenic Drive” which is paved for several miles, then turns into a dirt road that goes deep into the canyons. We saw lots of great rock formations along this drive, including some named formations and some native american petroglyphs. On the dirt road, we drove between sheer high cliffs that felt like we were in a large city with skyscrapers! It was an eerie feeling, and we were glad it wasn’t threatening to rain because we were driving down a wash and a flash flood would have wiped us out!

The park is called Capital Reef for two separate reasons. The Reef part is because these steep sheer cliffs that run for over 100 miles were an impassable barrier to pioneers who came through this area. They called any such impassable barrier a reef, and this was the worst they had seen. The Capital part is because of a huge dome formed from an ancient sand dune that looks like the Capital Building dome. Hence, the early settlers named it the Capital Dome.

There’s lots more of the Capital Reef park that can be seen on hikes and other drives. We went on a hike to a natural bridge,a nd on a drive through the Reef on a much longer dirt road. I talk about what we saw on those trips in other entries.

Here are pictures we took during our first trip into Capital Reef:

We came to Torrey, UT to see two national parks nearby, Capital Reef and Grand Staircase/Escalante. The Grand Staircase/Escalante park is named for the bands of color on one very long cliff within the park. The bands make it look like a staircase. The Escalante part of the park is an ancient sand dune area that was compressed into rock millions of years ago, and as the river cut through it and the dirt eroded from the wind, strange and interesting shapes appeared.

We drove through the Escalante region and found the geology fascinating. The ancient sand dunes eroded into swirls, bands, domes and other weird shapes. It was very pretty.

Here are pictures we took of our drive through Escalante:

Our last trip into the Capital Reef national park was to drive through a more remote section of the park. Several miles were dirt road, and while in good repair, the washboard effect was very pronounced…the noise and shaking really scared Laddy and he kept trying to get into Jeff’s lap!

But the views were great – very interesting rock formations and canyons.

Here are some pictures we took during our ‘back-country’ drive: