If Canyonlands National Park was the country cousin to Arches National Park, then Capitol Reef National Park is the distant relative. Though it’s just a couple of hours away from Moab, it could be across the country. Only 663,670 visitors came in 2013 as compared to 1,082,866 in Arches but more than Canyonlands (462,242 visitors).

The park is defined by a “waterpocket fold,” basically a long warp of rocks. It’s as if the earth buckled and created canyons, spires, domes and a jumble of rocks. Somewhere in there, a river runs through all this stone. Look at the picture above. It’s like they forgot to paint the rest of the rock.

Explorers and outlaws, including supposedly Butch Cassidy, came through here. The first settlers were a small group of Mormons who called their community Fruita for the fruit orchards. The orchards are still here and the park service maintains the fruit trees. You can buy pies made from the Capitol Reef fruit but they aren’t baked here.
Capitol Reef became a national monument in 1937 and a national park in 1971. By then, the last Fruita residents had left the canyon.

Today, Lenny and I put together three hikes for a total of 10 miles. Three separate hikes, with some driving in between, gets me a lot more tired than one hike of the same distance. But we’re trying to see the “top of the pops,” which in this park means short trail.

Chimney Rock Trail, a 3.5 miles lollipop, took us up to see the Rock. Unlike Chimney Rock State Park in North Carolina, no one was offering an elevator with a gift shop on top.

Hickman Bridge Trail, a two-mile out and back, is probably the most popular trail. The bridge, as I’m ashamed to say I found out only when I got there, was a natural bridge, an arch. We had our picture taken, probably the last time we’ll have our photo taken on a trail this trip.

Last but definitely not least, we walked into a canyon. The trail, Grand Wash, went through part of the pocket fold with sheer cliffs on each side.

By the early afternoon, it was hot and windy. The wind seems to pick up about 2 pm and you really have to hold on to your hat. Sand blows hard; everything I own is now gritty. It’s just part of living here, I guess.

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We’ve hiked our last trail in Arches National Park. How can I describe Arches in a way that hasn’t been said before? Overwhelming, awesome, amazing. I think I’ve used these adjectives over and over again.

From Moab, we drove into the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands National Park. The two parks, Arches and Canyonlands, are always mentioned together.

But where Arches is easy, accessible, sometimes crowded, and has lots of short hikes to destinations that are easy to appreciate, Canyonlands is rugged.

Yes, this is a national park but I think of Canyonlands as the country cousin to Arches: big with many rough trails and few amenities. You even need to bring your own water since there’s none in the visitor center.

Canyonlands is divided into four sections. We visited the Needles area on our way to Moab. Island in the Sky, the main section, offers views into the Green and Colorado River. We hiked down into a canyon on the Neck Spring loop. This part of Island in the Sky attracted ranchers in the 19th century because it has several springs. Water is always the issue here.

On a Sunday morning, we didn’t see another person on the Neck Spring Loop trail.

Hiking in Arches and Canyonlands is difficult. We’ve yet to do a hike of more than eight miles. The challenge isn’t the elevation gain; it’s the rocky terrain. Lenny and I have been spoiled by Smokies trails for so long that we’re finding the hiking tough.

The barren rock called slick makes up a sizeable part of any trail here. Sometimes, if it’s a tourist trail, the park will have installed a few rock steps. When it’s not rock, it’s sand, almost like on a beach. Couple all those challenges with the sun and heat and you have two slow hikers.

But the views are like nothing else I’ve seen. We’ve walked into canyons and on the rim, looking down onto rocky structures that can’t be explained.

But it’s not all distant views. Right now, prickly pear cactus, both yellow and pink, is in bloom. There’s Indian paintbrush, blue, pink and lavender asters and a whole slew of flowers that I can only admire but not identify. Lizards that scurry to get out from under our feet are as colorful as the flowers.

Goodbye as well to Moab, Utah. It’s time to move on.     

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Arches National Park is not the Smokies.

Well, that’s obvious, you might say. Arches protects the incredible arches and sandstone sculptures unique to this park. It offers 20 to 25 miles of hiking trail as compared to over 800 miles of trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In fact, all its trails are described in the free pamphlet they give out at the fee station. There’s no need to buy Hiking Trails of the Smokies for this park.

Did I say, Fee? Of course. The Smokies is the only major national park without an entrance fee. To get into Arches, you pay $10 a car unless you have a pass. Not much diversity either. I already know all the common trees in the Southwest–juniper, pinion pines, and gambel oak.

Today, we hiked Devils Garden Trail, 7.2 miles, the longest trail in the park, with only 750 feet of altitude gain. But it took us five and a half hours because of the challenging terrain. The first short section to Landscape Arch was easy. Most visitors must stop here.

We continued on what the park describes as a “semi-primitive trail” but the 50 cents map didn’t explain was that meant. All of the sudden the nice, wide trail turned into a rock climb. At every step, I had to decide where to put my feet, my hands, my butt, and my hiking poles. We followed the crowd and got to Partition Arch and Navajo Arch. I was upset to see that a group of teenagers led by a disinterested leader tried to climb the walls of the arch to get better pictures.

The trail got worse. People wandered all over the rocks since there were no cairns. A young family convinced us that we had to slide down or jump down to get over the folds in the rock. Lenny decided that it wasn’t for him and I followed. As I turned around, I noted Double O arch and a nice trail to reach it. Where was the sign? Every other arch has a sign. We quickly followed the trail to Double O arch.

There we found a sign to Dark Angel on a trail designated Primitive. I don’t understand their trail categories. The trail was perfectly defined with cairns. On the way back, we had a choice to go back the same way and fight the ups and downs of the rocks or take a loop on a primitive trail of unknown quality. In this case, the devil we didn’t know was a better choice. Again, the cairns were well placed and easy to follow.

By midday, the sun was brutal. The wind picked up and I just couldn’t keep my hat on. I walked without any protection on my head. It’s a good thing I had plenty of water.

Lots more arches to discover in this park.  

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Greeting from Moab, Utah, gateway to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.

The town is like Taos, NM on steroids or Gatlinburg, TN with more pretense and more parking spaces.

For 5,100 people, Moab is jumping. So is Arches NP. This is the first place on our trip that felt crowded. Though Arches get just over a million visitors, they’re concentrated in a few months out of the year. In contrast, the Smokies gets almost ten million visitors, but they come almost all year round.

We walked up Delicate Arch this morning. Nature sculpted the red sandstone into arches, windows, turrets, giants and monsters. I didn’t know where to look first and how much to photograph. It was overwhelming. Over 2,000 arches have been documented. I don’t know if they all have names.

This three-mile round trip hike might be the most popular in Arches. Delicate Arch is on the Utah license place.Though we got to the trailhead at 8:15 am, we were hardly the first people there. The signs warned visitors that the climb was steep and rocky and to take at least a quart of water.

I don’t know if there’s such a thing as hiking studies but I’ve noted a phenomenon which I could graph. On short, popular hikes such as on Delicate Arch, I’ve noticed how adults prepare for a hike, based on their ages.

20 year old – no water, no pack, no hat much of the time. “Go light, go fast,” one fellow told me. But they all have good walking shoes

30 year old – a bottle of water in one hand, a camera in the other

40 year old – The man carries a small pack. The woman carries just a camera in her hand.

50 year old – Everyone carries their own packs.

60 ++ – pack, hiking poles, good boots. We’re prepared.

Of course, there are exceptions. In statistics, they’re called outliers.

I also noticed shoes. Most visitors wear sneakers. Some attempted the hike to Delicate Arch in sandals or flip-flops. That’s their prerogative. But when I see families where the parents and son have sneakers and daughter has sandals, I see red. That’s hiking child abuse.

We also climbed to Double Arch and several other formations. You could spend days here finding different arches and photographing them.

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