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

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)

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

Thanks for sharing Doug. Beautiful country.

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

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!

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