We woke with the birds on this beautiful morning and left camp as the sun came up over the Utah desert. We weren't in a rush but we seemed to be moving with a sense of a good night sleep, clean clothes, and a refreshing shower, or better said with a hop in our step. We wanted to check out Canyonlands National Park which was, as the crow flies just a few miles next to Moab. However, we were not flying as a crow on this day so we stuck to the paved roads and it took about an hour.
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| Canyonlands from Dead Horse Point |
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| More Dead Horse Point |
We had read about the lively point looking in to Canyonlands that are a must see from Dead Horse Point. The sun was still climbing it's way into the sky and we had some spectacular views of Canyonlands and we were the only people out there on this Saturday morning. If you are every heading in to the northeast portion of Canyonlands, do NOT miss Dead Horse Point. I said northeast portion of the park because the park is split into sections and you can't drive between them you must drive around them which takes 4 hours or longer, so we read that must of the time people only visit one portion of the park.
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| Canyonlands National Park |
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We entered Canyonlands and the visitors center was just opening up at 8 a.m. and we jumped in to grab a map and fill up our water bottles. We knew where we were going, Mesa Arch, and didn't need to waste time reading about how canyons were formed. It was a short hike from the parking area to Mesa Arch and by the looks of the lot, there were only a few people out this morning. We reached the arch and realized that the few cars in the parking lot were actually all apart of a photography class. The teacher was giving them tips on how to best photograph the arch with the background and rising sun, I listened in and took some great shots!
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| Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park |
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| Mesa Arch Using the Photography Class' Tips |
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| Canyonlands National Park |
We stopped at a few other lookout points on our way back out of the park but to be honest, Dead Horse Point was the best one so that made us even happier about stopping there on the way in. After our brief trip to Canyonlands we were headed to another national park that surprisingly isn't in the Pacific Ocean, Capitol Reef National Park.
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| Southern Utah Scenery |
Capitol Reef is named for the white domed rock formations that somewhat resemble the Capitol Building and a reef was once used to describe a high ridge that was difficult if not impossible to pass. Capitol Reef was one of the places that we knew essentially nothing about before our trip but quickly came to love the scenery. We stopped at the visitors center and learned about the area, the early settlers, how they farmed the land near the river as almost all other land was non-arable. The guide told us that the Hickman Natural Bridge hike was a couple of miles but mostly flat.
We enjoyed the hike towards the natural bridge without many expectations. The natural bridge is just another arch, which we had seen many the past two days but I was able to climb on top of this bridge. I was enjoying myself trying to make it all the way to the summit, jumping from wall to wall, pulling my way higher until a clap of thunder stopped me in my tracks. I looked around for a storm cloud but didn't see anything, even still we didn't want to be stuck 3 miles from our car if a freak storm was coming through the desert. So I jumped down and we picked up some steam hiking back. The fear of a flash flood kept our feet moving forward and before long we made it all the way back without a cloud in the sky. We took off our shoes and dipped our feet in the river and discussed how the thunder might actually have been a giant rock breaking off of a wall and crashing to the ground.
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| Capitol Reef Hickman Natural Brdige |
We wanted to stay in the area for the rest of the day because we were going to try to find this waterfall the next day and luckily we found a camp ground in Torrey, Utah called Thousand Lakes Campground. We made it to the campsite by early afternoon which was wonderful because the campsite exceeded our expectations. There was a pool that we laid by, drank beers by, napped by, read our depressing book club book, 5 Bells, by and of course cooled off in. We did told to not drink out of glass bottles next to the pool but we were glad to pour our Squatters brews into plastic cups to enjoy the relaxation time longer.
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| Southern Utah Scenery |
For dinner, a trailer pulled up and was hand-making brick oven pizzas, so we ordered one and devoured it because it was so fresh and delicious. After our pizza, we ordered some homemade muffins from the convenience store that they were baking in the morning for breakfast. After watching the beautiful sunset from the Western edge of our campground, we climbed in to our tent to watch Incredibles on the computer and fell asleep.
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| Sunset Over Torrey, Utah |
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