Day 3 at Capitol Reef

Posted from Moab, UT    (Click on Pics to Enlarge)

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To see additional pics for the Grand Wash Trail click HERE.
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Saturday 9/20 turned out to be our last day of doing any real activities in the park.  We had anticipated going on another hike on Sunday, but it rained on and off most of the day and we just didn't feel like venturing onto the trails in the rain.

Saturday found us hiking the "Grand Wash" trail.  Although this might sound like a boring day of doing laundry, it turned out much better.  The Grand Wash Trail is approximately 2.2 miles each way and the trailheads can be located from either the side of the road in a parking area along US24 or you can access the other end from the Scenic Drive and traveled on a dusty, gravelly 1.3 mile drive at the end of Grand Wash Road.

We decided that the Fit was filthy enough already, so we decided to enter from the US24 side. The elevation change is very little throughout the entire hike. The trail is wide at this point.

After a short distance the trail begins to narrow and the canyon walls close in on the wash.

As always, the scenery along the trails is amazing.  The colors of the rock are constantly changing throughout the hike.  Really nice vertical striations along the walls here.

Here we are following the wash not too far from parking area mentioned earlier off of the Grand Wash Road.

Here's a picture of the parking area taken from a rock ledge across from that area.

This side of the trail was in total shade and because we were out hiking in the hotter part of the afternoon, we decided that this would be a nice spot for a lunch break.  Cool, quite, and beautiful views!

After a short rest it was time to start the hike back toward our start along US24.  Here's a picture looking back in that direction.

It's amazing how different the rocks and features look on the same trail when the route is reversed. Here I located a nice alcove for a breather.

Along the same line of thought, we never saw this formation on the way in.  Doesn't it look like a skull?

I guess a few rocks had shifted since we entered, so Karen was put to work clearing the trail.

I'm not a geologist, so I won't even begin to talk about rock formations, but I do like the results which nature provides for us.

We saw many examples throughout the park of rocks like this one.  I just thought it was a "cool" rock, so I took a picture.





We were really sorry not to be able to hike another trail on Sunday, but we were very impressed by this lesser known National Park.  If you are ever in this part of the state you might want to spend a few days here.

Onward to Moab as of Monday (9/22).

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!