14 October 2017, Saturday
Torrey, Utah and Capitol Reef National Park
We rise early for breakfast and go downstairs to see what the hotel is offering. The breakfast room is crowded. Apparently, bus tour participants stayed here last night, and everyone is eating early in order to catch the bus. Happily, they are mostly finished so O and I are able to find a table and sit down to eat. Following breakfast we drive to the visitor center at Capitol Reef. The facility is quite crowded. One of the rangers explains that the center was built anticipating about 700 visitors a day, but Utah has done such a good job promoting tourism that the park gets nearly three times that number of visitors daily during the busy season. Because it was Utah’s idea to promote the parks, the federal government is not helping to expand the facilities.
Capitol Reef is a giant fold in the earth’s crust formed when the Pacific plate slid under the North American plate activating a fault in this area. The sedimentary layers here were uplifted and then drooped down over the edge of the higher side of the fault, creating the Water Pocket Fold. Then erosion performed its art work, carving canyons and exposing the multi-colored layers. We attend a geology talk by a young ranger and notice the Hamilton College sticker on her water bottle. After she is finished with her talk about five of the layers here at the park and has answered numerous questions about geology, we ask when she graduated – 2015.
Next O and I drive to the Grand Wash trailhead. There are two trails that leave from here. One climbs along a cliff face to Cassidy Arch (named after Butch Cassidy who, legend has it, hid out in this area,) while the other trail is a level, easy trail that winds up Grand Wash to a very narrow canyon. We decide to climb to Cassidy Arch first and then walk the wash. The climb goes smoothly at first, but soon we find ourselves on a very narrow path along a sheer cliff. O and I agree that this is not fun, so we carefully retrace our steps along the ledge. Soon we discover we had taken a wrong turn, but the actual trail, although wider, still does not look terribly inviting. We return to Vincent for lunch and then enjoy walking the easy Grand Wash Trail.
Along the way, we spy a big horn sheep on the ledges above. After further exploration, we walk back out of the wash into the sunshine, and then drive to the end of the scenic road through Capitol Reef National Park. The red, white, green, purple and brown colors of the cliffs are stunning in the afternoon sun. We return to Red Sands Hotel and then revisit Cafe Diablo for yet another delicious supper.
