Saying Good-bye to the Apples and Capitol Reef National Park

We are doing well in our free camping spot about 7 miles from Capitol Reef. We run the generator for an hour in the morning, so we can charge up the batteries and use the microwave and toaster for cooking breakfast. Another hour in the evening gives us power for cooking another meal and running the hot water heater for showers and charging batteries again. So we are in a flow of living off the grid for these four days. We had a night of rain, and that brought with it some concerns here in the desert. We worried that our dirt parking spot might turn into a red mud swimming hole. We also weren't sure if we would be able to do all the hiking we wanted since the trails would be muddy. We might not be able to drive down to our intended trail head down the dirt Grand Wash Road--known for being closed from water running over it. 

So we waited a little later in the day, and made our usual stop for apples at our favorite orchard. Thankfully, the mud on the roads wasn't too bad, and we were hiking down the Grand Wash Trail by 1:00. Surrounded by tall canyon walls, it looks like Denisa is standing at the end of the canyon.

But this canyon actually goes for 2.2 miles as those tall walls curve and then present a whole new path through the canyon. In the middle of that two miles is the narrowest section where Mark is standing. "The Narrows" is not a good place to be in a rain storm when water can rush through and drown unsuspecting hikers.

It's another fun hike with almost no elevation gain, but great views at the bottom of those tall canyon walls. You can barely see Denisa, standing at the bottom of the picture, feeling very small in those grand surroundings.

We were at the end of the canyon hike when the group of hikers ahead of us alerted us to a snake curled under a rock in our path.

Mark wanted to warn other hikers about the rattle snake on the trail, so he was drawing an arrow and warning in the sand.

We got a better look at this little guy, with just a tiny button rattle. It's our only wildlife picture of the day, and not one that we like to see.

Our legs were feeling good after the first hike, so we decided to take another. This time we will be hiking straight up the mountain. To get some perspective on our destination, we'll start at the viewpoint on the Grand Wash Road. We're supposed to be able to see Cassidy Arch from here.

If we zoom into just the top layers of the mountain, can we see Cassidy Arch?

So we zoomed in even further, to finally see our destination at the very top of the mountain. Alrighty then, we are heading straight up! Too bad there isn't an elevator to the top.

After an hour on the trail, we could look across the top of the mountain to see the dark circle that is our first view of the arch from on high. Named after Butch Cassidy, it is believed that he and his band of outlaws hid out in the same Grand Wash we are hiking today.

It was a long hike over the slick rock to get to this most unusual arch. Denisa is standing on the top of the mountain, looking down through the arch. Of course, Mark was fast to volunteer to hike around the edge to stand on top of the arch.

But from his vantage point, Mark thought that Denisa was standing in the scariest spot. She is standing where most people view the arch, and right below her is a 200 foot drop.

Again, we have to say how good it is to visit a less well-known national park in the fall. We had the arch all to ourselves for more pictures. Now Denisa is checking out the view from on top of Cassidy Arch.

While we are on top of the mountain, we took a look off the other edge to see the tall red cliff and the tiny road far below.

After spending some time enjoying Cassidy Arch, we headed back down the trail. We saw the chains at the top, indicating that some people rappel down from the top. But Denisa prefers to do it the hard way and walk down. This was our last hike at Capitol Reef National Park. In these four days, we have hiked around 30 miles to the bottom of the canyons and the tops of these red mountains. After the hikes today, we made our sixth trip into the orchards for apples. Mark is tasting one while still on the ladder, since we are planning to buy some to take on the road with us.

Visitors can eat as much fruit as they'd like for free while in the orchard. Knowing that different trees have very different tasting fruit, we would sample one before we put some of the same in our bag to purchase. It was another fun day of apple sampling!

We really enjoyed our time at Capitol Reef, and we'll be taking a little bit of it with us as we continue down the road to our next adventure. It seems fitting that our last picture from this special national park includes two of its best features--the orchard leaves starting to change to fall colors in front of more of those beautifully lit sandstone mountains.