Capital Reef National Park

Sunday, April 1, 2012
Where we are: Capital Reef National Park near Torrey, Utah, Fruita Campground, sites 34 and 35. 5 dollars each with geezer card. No mifi signal.
As I write this the sun is shining on the tops of the rock cliffs just opposite the campground, but the wind is really whistling around the cavemobiles. When we left Bryce Canyon NP this morning it was beginning to cloud over, and was expected down into the 20s overnight. It has been windy most of the day, with strong wind advisories posted. We have taken our time and stopped a lot of places along the way, and probably travelled less than 200 miles today. We have gone through many different kinds of scenery.
We had a fairly early breakfast and then headed out, stopping for more pictures along the way, and pulling off into most of the viewpoints. As soon as we left Bryce we started heading down, and got a couple of pictures looking back up. Just a different angle on what we had been seeing in the park.
Not too many more miles down the road was a VC that had a stamp or two, so we had to do that. We got a brochure about travelling on Utah 12, so had that as a guide for our travels. It is a beautiful road to travel. We must have stopped at three or four different Visitor Centers to get a variety of stamps.
We started in Bryce at about 8000 feet elevation, and went over a pass that was 9600. I think that was fairly close to the viewpoint we pulled into where it was howling wind, and cold! We didn’t stay very long!
One of the featured highlights of the road was a place called The Hogback. The brochure says “as the asphalt clings to this thin razorback ridge of slickrock, the terrain spills steeply off to each side…”  When we got there, we weren’t even sure we were there yet, and felt it was given quite a bit more drama than it deserved. Although there was a quarter mile or so where there were no shoulders of any kind along the road, and it was very steep on each side.
     


Besides being low on battery power for the computer, our mifi coverage hasn’t been real great in some of the back areas we have been in, so our blog postings are slow.

We finished the day by pulling into the Fruita campground of Capital Reef National Park and found a spot to spend the night. Then we went back to the VC and watched the movie and looked around at the displays. They had a pie and baked goods display that was advertising a house right next to the campground where there is a small store and museum. So we stopped there to pick up a couple of pies (the very small ones) to have later.
We still had plenty of time, so took the scenic drive through the park, went back to the campground, dumped the tanks, and crashed early. The wind was very strong, and very cold, so we are tucked in for the night. Good night all.