UTAZ Day 3: Capitol Reef NP

[Author's note: I plan to publish one travel post a day for the next week or so. I know it's a lot of detail, but I don't want to forget a moment and the posts help me when I (1) want something to read when I can't sleep at night; and (2) answer questions when friends ask me about the trip later!]

We woke up in Moab to a great motel breakfast and Streetfighter in the arcade room before packing up and heading out on our scenic drive through Capitol Reef National Park on our way to Escalante where we expected to stay for the next 3 nights (spoiler alert: no).

It's a 2 hour drive to Capitol Reef, our first new National Park of the trip. We had downloaded the GyPSy Guide app before we left the land of hotel wifi and that gave us a great narrated tour that tracks the GPS in your phone. We didn’t have cell service all day so I am SO glad a neighbor told me to download the guide- it was awesome and we learned so much!

Capitol Reef is an often overlooked part of the Mighty Five but having a guide narrating the history and rock formations really added another dimension.

The kids were fascinated by the historical schoolhouse.

We stopped at the Hickman Bridge trailhead. It promised a fun hike with great views and it delivered.

Just 1.8 miles round-trip, with a 400 foot climb in elevation, and you get to hike under a rock bridge!

(I love how the three of them can always be found together. These aren't staged, they're just always in a pack and sit in age order, every time.)

Post-hike, we continued on to the Fruita Orchards which were open for apple picking!

Planted by early settlers, the orchards are now run by the NPS and we got to pick Ginger Gold Apples for $1/lb.

We explored historic Gifford House and bought the last one of their famous apple pies.

After collecting our new passport stamp we continued on to several viewpoints, including Gooseneck and Panorama (Gooseneck was our favorite).

Escalante and the scenic highway is a masterpiece itself. Spectacular views, sheer cliffs, amazing colors… it was wonderful.

We got to Escalante and pulled up to our much anticipated yurt (full kitchen, master bedroom, and a loft for the kids- it was to be glamping at its finest) only to find they’d made a mistake in our reservation and thought we were coming August 6th. They were booked solid so we called our Zion hotel, bumped up our reservation, decided to backtrack to Escalante in 3 days, got a free dinner from the very apologetic yurt owners, and set out on another 2.5 hour drive west.

As noted earlier, this is when I bravely took took the wheel and played chicken with a cow. Then, to continue to adventure, we made it to Zion in pitch black darkness only to discover we had no cell service and our GPS was confused. It seemed to seemed to be directing us through the scenic drive, so we (I!) slowly drove through the park, through long tunnels and tight switchbacks, sweating through my shirt and hoping we wouldn’t reach the end and have to turn around. But we didn’t! At 10 pm we checked into a gorgeous upgraded hotel suite with fireplace and giant jacuzzi tub where I immediately settled in.

To liven up the otherwise dull evening a live tarantula was waiting for us on the path to our room. The kids named him Tony and were sad when he was gone in the morning.

James and I got to sleep in our own room while the kids were in the living room. In the morning James walked to the nearby market and made breakfast in our full kitchen while I called our canyoneering company to try to rebook our rapelling tour that was now going to be on a day we'd be back in Escalante. I'd heard a lot about the crowds at the park and especially the shuttle station, so I didn't love lingering around the hotel room waiting to refigure things, but it turned out perfectly and we set out for the Narrows about 10 a.m. on what would be my favorite day of the whole trip.