Andrew and I got ready for our hike to Brimhall Arch, but Dick had changed his mind about hiking and took off this morning. We suspected he may have been a bit hung over.
Our trail to Brimhall Arch took us down very steeply into the canyon below. It’s about a 2.5 mile hike; the first mile is straight down, the second mile took us across the floor of the canyon, and the last 1/2 mile was when things really got interesting. We hiked up a dry creek bed and climbed up a rock face about 10 feet high. We walked/scrambled along the top of more boulders to a more narrow canyon with a few pockets of water from the last few rains. We waded thru the pool of water, maybe halfway to the knee, to a huge boulder wedged in the narrow canyon. We had to go to one side of the boulder and wedge our body to get up, after stacking rocks to get a foothold. Andrew got up, but I couldn’t. After the first rock climb, I was pretty tired, but this was much harder. (I compared our pictures to Andrew’s first trip, it looks like there has been a lot of erosion in the last few years) I waited while he went up to view the arch. I sat on a rock and enjoyed a spectacular view of multiple canyon walls. We had lunch and hiked back out, finding evidence of a carnivore living in the area, half a chipmunk and the hind foot of a rabbit (not real lucky for the rabbit, was it?) It was getting pretty warm by the time we got back thru the floor of the canyon and up the mesa.
We got packed up and headed further up the Burr Trail. The Burr Trail Switchbacks took us steeply up the side of a mesa to the top. In a couple of miles, we were back on pavement. We had some of the most incredible views.
Burr Trail begins in Glen Canyon, goes thru Capitol Reef and then into Grand Staircase-Escalante, then continues into the town of Boulder, Utah and the Anasazi State Park. We stopped at Anasazi State Park to get some info. It’s a museum and archeological site, but we don’t have time to check it out right now… next time.
We drove north from Capitol Reef back into Grand Staircase, thru the town of Torrey, Utah (stopped for gas), back into Capitol Reef and to the overlooks. We’re back into Capitol Reef and checked out some of the exhibits. We were both getting tired, so we didn’t get to finish Capitol Reef. They have a Mormon settlement living history museum and orchards that we didn’t get to. We also discovered we broke a bolt on out bike rack and need to get it fixed soon. We found an area of BLM land and camped. We had to miss nearby Cathedral Valley. We’re going straight into Moab, UT tomorrow and coming back thru here after our stay in Colorado.
We’re ready for a break from traveling for a day or so and we need to have some things fixed. We have two holes in out Thule Roof Storage box, we’ve lost a bolt on one of the bike trays and we’re holding it on with a paperclip, our 1 gallon propane tank is broken and can’t be filled, our camera has a spring broken and won’t stay open to take pictures, the GPS is temperamental when it gets hot (it’s been fun dealing with that in the desert), our fuel gauge on the truck is acting up again (always fun when 150 miles out on a dirt road), our Camelback hydration systems have some serious funk growing in them and we’ve packed our cleaning brushes, so we need to buy another. AND I ripped my brand new REI pants sliding down a rock today on the Brimhall Arch trail. We need a break.