Megan’s Take
Today we hiked the Grand Wash trail in Capitol Reef National Park. The kids and I walked at least 2 miles out and back, and Phil went a bit further. It’s a very easy, flat walk along a dry wash with canyon walls towering above you. One of the cool parts of the trail is how water has carved pockets and “caves” into the sandstone at the base of the canyon walls along the trail. Emilia and Emmett had a lot of fun climbing and playing pretend in the caves.
I got them to hike further and further into the canyon by telling them we needed to move to a different “campsite”, finding a different cave further down the trail.
After lunch and more pies from the Gifford House,
we hiked Sunset Point trail and Gooseneck overlook.
I’m amazed at how much Emilia and Emmett love trails with rock for steps or climbing on/over/around rocks on the trails. It keeps them going. One funny thing is that both kids found flat, rectangular rocks along these trails and pretended they were phones. They had to stop repeatedly to take “pictures.”
We went on a scenic drive outside of the park to the east this afternoon. While starting down an unpaved road through BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land, I noticed what looked like agate on the road cut. We got out to pick among the rocks at the roadside, but Phil wandered out further and found the mother lode of agate.
It’s a different color than what we found at Agate Hill, so I need to investigate what the various types are. But I’m excited to put them in my tumbler at home.
Last note on the day – HEARTBREAK. When we got back to the campground this evening, the neighbor horse and pony were not in their pasture. Emilia cried for at least an hour at the likelihood that she would never see them again. She did not want to see other horses and could not be consoled in any way. She wanted to see her campground horse that she had bonded with. It was true heartbreak that she thought she would never see them again. Thank God that they suddenly appeared at 7 pm, right before we put the kids in bed. Phil went outside to cover their windows for bedtime and noticed that the horse was waiting at the fence behind our camper. Emilia and Emmett got to say good night and goodbye to the horse and pony, and it was a happy ending.
Phil’s Take
As Megan said, I hiked a bit further into Grand Wash to get some views of it. I was willing to go as far as I had time, and made it to the trailhead for Cassidy Arch, which I was definitely not going to do. It was 1.5 miles and nearly 1000 feet up. It was just not in the schedule.
I would say the best part of that hike is the narrows, which started less than a mile from the road. I got some very good views of the sheer cliffs that went up hundreds of feet.
Once I got to the other side of the narrows, it opened up a ton. While it was still a beautiful view, I still contend that the narrows are the best part.
I thought it was strange that it was wider at the point where I took that panorama above than the parking we visited yesterday on the other side.
I caught this shot of one of the cliffs, which looked similar to some wood grain that I’ve seen. Keep in mind that this Cliff is several hundred feet tall.
All in all, it was a great hike. It’s very easy and the views are excellent.
The featured image on this article (the one at the top) was captured from the cliffs at the edge of the canyon near Sunset Point on the west side of the park. I think it might be the best picture we captured the entire trip. Here’s a panorama from Sunset Point itself.
After Sunset Point, we went the other direction to Gooseknecks, where I captured this panorama.
That was a pretty cool canyon with multiple bends there, a surprise to go along with the backdrop of the beautiful Water Fold Pocket.
It was then time to get the kids some rest, so we headed out for a scenic drive. We had gone a little way down a road yesterday east of the park, where we turned off to head fruitlessly toward a rock hounding location Megan had gotten directions for. This time we headed further without any particular plans. This land is barren, but beautiful.
Even though it was really just dirt, there were still a few “gems” here and there.
Speaking of gems, after we stopped for a few minutes for Megan to hunt for rocks in one of the washes, we happened upon the BLM road Megan mentioned. She wasn’t really wanting to continue exploring, but I suggested we just try it. We didn’t get more than a quarter mile from the main road before Megan saw some agates out the window on the side of the road. After a brief investigation, we decided to proceed a little further to see if there was anything better. The road got much worse, so we turned around and went back to that initial place she saw agates, but not before capturing this view.
When we got back to the agate location, Megan got out and started sifting through what she could find right there next to the road. I’m the sort of person that will see what else is around when I see evidence of something like that. I wandered for about 10 minutes not finding much more than cow patties before I stumbled upon what I thought was a huge deposit. It was really just several larger pieces that weren’t really all that colorful, but I called her over to look. I took a few steps further and started noticing a huge increase in agates. It turns out that there is a massive deposit there. Every speck in this picture is an agate, and more beautiful in my opinion than nearly every agate we found on Agate Hill.
For posterity, I’m saving the map location here.
I can’t believe that horse was there waiting when I went outside. She was so distraught and it immediately made her feel better. Funny thing is that neither Megan or I gave her a time limit to say goodbye, so it was maybe just a couple of minutes to start and she was ready to go back inside. It wasn’t until Megan said that they could stay out until she finished her shower that they went back out and spent significant time petting and saying goodbye to both the horse and the pony.
The entirety of our pictures for the day are in this gallery.
