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My Utah Backtracking (sic) Trip: 4/24/18


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Home Forums Campfire Member Trip Reports My Utah Backtracking (sic) Trip: 4/24/18

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  • #3538183
    Doug Coe
    BPL Member

    @sierradoug

    Locale: Bay Area, CA, USA

    Oh, right. Make a sacrificial (Bighorn) lamb post first.

     

    #3538184
    Doug Coe
    BPL Member

    @sierradoug

    Locale: Bay Area, CA, USA

     

    This isn’t quite a backpacking trip report. I did plan it as an overnight, but I bailed long before I set up camp. Sad. Very sad.

    As part of a road trip from the San Francisco area to Albuquerque, I made a fabulous tour of the southern Utah national parks, day hiking in Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands.

    My backpacking was to be in the less well known Capitol Reef NP. I had found a route online that intrigued me. Hike up Capitol Gorge, cut across a trail-less area for about five miles, and then come out on the lovely Pleasant Creek.

    I’d be using the app Viewranger with a GPS track (which was made available for free on the Viewranger website by backpacker.com).

    Anywho, I’d never used a GPS track before, nor that app, and I found myself checking my iPhone every minute or so and going slower than usual.

    After a while, I noticed my phone battery was running down quicker than I was making miles. So, I bailed.

    (Also, the terrain, once I got off-trail, turned un-beautiful in the extreme. To me. YMMV.)

    Oh, well. Capitol Gorge was gorgeous. And the next day I hiked up Grand Wash to Cassidy Arch—standing on top of the arch was nicely dramatic.

    The approach (on a dirt road)

    Cool pockmarked rock

    Winding down the road in the gorge

    Narrowing gorge

    Remains of concrete support (there was a roadway here 100 years ago—the only way through the Waterfold Pocket)

    Desert bushy things

    Cool undercut rock

    The gorge opens out

    Famous old car with sign advertising Capitol Reef Nat. Mon.

    Full view of that car

    Part way into the off-trail section—barbed wire fence to climb under (note: Pacer Poles)

    British burial barrow (what came to my mind, as I was reading a book that featured them)

     

    #3538187
    Doug Coe
    BPL Member

    @sierradoug

    Locale: Bay Area, CA, USA

    Walking back out the dirt road I came face to face with…a bighorn sheep. Awesome!

    #3538287
    Ken Thompson
    BPL Member

    @here

    Locale: Right there

    Thanks for sharing Doug. Beautiful country.

    I agree, the bighorn was awesome. Pretty close for them.

    #3538369
    Doug Coe
    BPL Member

    @sierradoug

    Locale: Bay Area, CA, USA

    I would guesstimate I was about forty yards from the bighorn. It was quite cool to be so close. I stopped and let it amble off the road so as not to startle it…or get rammed!

    #3538373
    BlackHatGuy
    Spectator

    @sleeping

    Locale: The Cascades

    Thanks for sharing Doug, a fun read and great pics!

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