Today (17th Jan) we moved onto our third National Park, as we headed to Capitol Reef Canyon.

It was only a few hours drive, which we did at a leisurely pace with only an occasional stop on route to take photos. It felt like we were the only car on the road as we weaved our way through the canyon and past the ‘Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’ area. As we got higher we started to see lots of snow which was nice.

Once we arrived in Capitol Reef we headed to the visitor centre to pick up a map of the park, which handily lists all of the trails, along with crucial details such as how long they are and what to expect. It lists them into categories of easy, moderate and strenuous. We also spoke to one of the staff members to get recommendations on which are the most popular and best to do. This is what we’ve done on all of our stops so far.

So, armed with that information we headed to check into our hotel, which was in a nearby village. We were actually staying in a small motel this time, which was basic but very clean and had everything we needed.

Once we’d settled in we went out in search of places for dinner. Unfortunately options were limited, like it had proved in the previous parks, owing to it being winter which meant a lot of the restaurants and amenities were closed.

We did find somewhere but it wasn’t a great experience as my food came out luke warm and Si’s had a piece of plastic in it! They did give us 10% off the bill. Elaine would not have been impressed and would’ve refused to pay!

Day 1 in Capitol Reef

So, onto our first full day in the park and the first thing we noticed when we got outside was the temperature and how much colder it was. The temperature read -10 C (feeling like -20 C because of the wind). The sun was still out but it was bitterly cold. I swear I had cold/chill burn by the end of the day.

We did 3 trails, one easy and two moderate.

• Total distance hiked = 9.73 miles
• Elevation change = 480 feet

The first was “Grand Wash” which took you on a trail through the narrows of the canyon. Some parts were like walking through a wind tunnel.

The second was “Hickman Bridge”, the feature being a giant arch in the rock half way around.

We also stopped by to see the petroglyphs on some of the canyon walls.

The last trail we did was “Fremont River trail” which began with an easy stroll along the river but ended with a steep climb up the canyon.

I almost bailed out of this one because at the start of the trail there was a poster warning of a recent sighting of a mountain lion!!! It was safe to say I started the walk a tad on edge, expecting to see a lion around every corner, but I started to relax as we got going. I’m glad we persevered as the views at the top were worth it, and thankfully no sign of any lions.

You’ll be pleased to hear we found a lovely place for dinner too, after the issues yesterday. It was a family run café which had a great selection of food, which was reasonably priced, and, more importantly it came out hot!

Si has loads more pics from day 2 coming soon, so don’t miss that one soon after this post 🙂

Lucy