Hiking through Mormon history

  Torrey, Utah, United States
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

After our adventure on Lake Powell, we headed on to Capitol Reef National Park.

Capitol Reef Vista 1

If you look at a map of that area of Utah, you'll see there are not many roads. The area is crisscrossed with canyons and cuts so there aren't many options for going from one place to another. Since our goal was to get to Zion, the road naturally ran through Capitol Reef and then Bryce. Capitol Reef is a series of dry washes and ravines that lead down to the Waterpocket Fold, an impressive crease in the earth that runs north/south and funnels water to the Colorado River. The area was first settled by Mormons in the late 1800s and a thriving community existed here until the area became a national monument and park in 1937. The Mormons planted fruit and nut orchards that still exist along the river that flows through the valley. There is also one of the homes set up as a combination store for the campground and historical museum showing how the people lived. The store sells homemade ice cream and pies made from the fruit from the valley. While we were there they had peach ice cream and cherry pies.
 
We decided to go on two hikes while we were there, one down Capitol Wash to the Tanks and another down Grand Wash. You can drive down to the trail head of each of these but there are prominent warnings about being aware of rainstorms. The roads are unpaved and graded and are really the streambeds of the washes. If rainstorms occur, there are warnings everywhere to seek high ground. We drove to the Capitol Wash trailhead and started down. The wash is a narrow canyon that leads to a formation called the Tanks.

Capitol Wash

The Tanks are really a series of pools of water that are on a cascade that comes down from the surrounding cliffs. We hiked up to them via a trail that was intermittently marked and got off trail once until we could find another of the marking cairns. It apparently had rained in the past week because there was water in the Tanks.

The tanks

There is a species of frog that lives up on these dry flats and lays its eggs when the pools fill. The eggs hatch and the tadpoles turn into frogs, all in a few days before the pools dry up again. It seems odd to have amphibians in such a dry area.

An intrepid survivor

Along the trail to the Tanks is an area called the Pioneers' Register. The wash was the wagon trail into and out of Capitol Reef. The passing pioneers carved their names into the walls of the canyon. There are signatures from the mid 1800s up to the 1920s. We hiked back up the wash to the car and then drove on to the Grand Wash. The Grand Wash was not appreciably different than the Capitol Wash and, after walking down a couple of miles, we decided we'd had enough desert canyons and turned back. The temperature had gotten quite high and it was a relief to get back to the car, especially since we had run out of water (the smile is staged).

The long suffering hiker

 
We were staying in the little town of Torrey, Utah, about twelve miles from the park entrance. Capitol Reef is listed in the NY Times book, "1000 Places to See Before You Die". The town is little more than a few hotels, B&Bs, and a small grocery store, but there is a restaurant, "Café Diablo" that is mentioned in the book. We decided to have dinner there after our parched hike. The restaurant is only open during the tourist season since there is not enough local population to support it during the winter. We had an excellent dinner and then called it a day.