Day 8 of 2020 Utah Trip, Capitol Reef National Park

Eighth day of my Utah trip. I would hike Chimney Rock Trail in the morning, and drive back to the suburbs of Salt Lake City in the afternoon for tomorrow’s morning flight back home.

Fields beyond Chimney Rock

I didn’t put much effort in planning my visit to Capitol Reef National Park. So having hiked the park’s three most popular trails the day before, I decided to venture out to the park’s fourth most popular trail, Chimney Rock Loop, for the morning.

Chimney Rock Loop Trail

The trail was conveniently located along Utah Route 24, measuring a total of 5.3km with a mild elevation gain of 242 meters, which took place mostly at the beginning of the (counter-clockwise) loop. The loop was around the top of a mesa, with the southern part offering views of stunning open fields shaped by geological forces, and the northern part traversing through a valley. The ever-changing scenery along the trail would never be boring.

Here’s GPS tracking:

 
Trail
Before getting onto the Mesa the trail was wide and flat.

At the fork of the trail, I turned right first, taking the loop counterclockwise. In this way Chimney Rock was just a short uphill stretch ahead.

 
Fields

 

Chimney Rock

The actual Chimney Rock was located off the mesa, a short distance from the trail. Its flat shape only resembled a chimney at the trail’s overlook (second row), but when viewed from a different angle (first row), it’s more like a water bottle.

Landscape
Where layered rocks scattered around.

 
Canyon

Then I continued along the trail.

 
Mesa

 
Goosenecks

Landscape
Where layered rocks were scatter around.

 
 
Trail
These were typical conditions of the trail, nothing difficult or technical.

Capitol Reef
Towards the end of the first half of the loop, one was greeted with views of rising sandstone layers, which constituted Capitol Reef.

Cactus Flower
The first time I saw a blossoming cactus, with a bee pollinating.

Click here to display photos of the landscape.

Layered Rocks

Landscape

Landscape

Landscape

Landscape

Then the trail entered a valley, with close-up views of various rock formations.

Mesa

Click here to display photos of the mesa.

Mesa

Mesa

Mesa

Mesa

Mesa

Mesa

Mesa

Mesa

Just shy of two hours on the trail, I was back at the parking lot, finishing a not-so-intense workout with lots of views.

Since it was still early in the day for me to drive back to Salt Lake City, I decided to give a final tour of the park, beginning with its Scenic Drive.

Scenic Drive

Scenic Drive followed Capitol Reef below its western cliff, as its name suggested, with lots of scenery.

Distant Mesas

“The Castle” in front of various soaring mesas in the background. This is my favorite roadside turnout along Scenic Drive, where the imposing distant mesas were captured at a long focal length.

Click here to display photos of the slideshow

Distant Mesas

Distant Mesas

Distant Mesas

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Field

Field

Mesa
An arch forming in the middle.

 
Road
The last segment of Scenic Drive before Capitol Gorge cut through giant rocks like this.

Capitol Gorge

Just like Grand Wash, where I hiked the day before, Capitol Gorge was a gorge/canyon cutting through Capitol Reef. It’s longer than Grand Wash and harder to make it a one-way hike from the village of Notom located in the middle of nowhere, and some online reviews mentioned the views at Grand Wash were better. So I chose to hike Grand Wash over it the previous day, and leave it to a few tourist photos at its entrance today.

 

Capitol Gorge

There was an information marker nearby, stating that Capitol Gorge was the main passage through Capitol Reef, until 1962 when Utah State Route 24 was finished. The current Gorge was cleared in 1883 by Elijah Behunin to improve wagon passage.

Eph Hanks Tower
One of the few named rocks in the region.

Gifford Homestead

One of the few structures left by the Mormon pioneers, named after longtime resident Dewey Gifford. The house was originally built in 1908 and remodeled many times over the years.

Gifford Homestead

Fruita Barn
Not far from the house as an affiliate to the farm.

 
House Interior
Nowadays, Gifford Homestead was half museum and half gift shop.

 
Garage

The first Mormon pioneers built a self-sufficient community with gravity-fed irrigation systems and horse-drawn equipment. The first tractor didn’t arrive in Fruita until 1940 and electricity until 1948.

The Castle

This piece of rock can also be viewed from the visitor center, where the backdrop changed from imposing mesas to blue sky.

Petroglyphs

Just off Utah Route 24, there was a cliff with some rock art by native American people, most likely dating between 300 and 1300 AD. There were signs that natural rock falls destroyed part of the petroglyphs.

Fruita Schoolhouse
I had no idea that students used to write on a small piece of black board with a chalk.

My final stop in the park was Fruita Schoolhouse.
This building was built in 1896 as Fruita’s only public structure. So it’s a school, a church and a community center at the same time. The school closed in 1941 due to declining student population, but was still preserved in top condition.

I found an interesting fact by a nearby information marker, that 8 to 26 students across 8 grades was taught by a single “typically new and inexperienced” teacher, who “often stayed no more than a year due to isolation and lack of support”.

Driving to Salt Lake City

After that, it was almost 3pm in the afternoon, as I started to make my way to the outskirts of Salt Lake City where I would be spending the night. Without the many stops I intended to make along the way, Google Maps suggested the road trip would take me just over 3 hours.

However, since I was carrying a drone, I made a few stops along the way and had some fun with it. The first stop was the town of Torrey where I spent two nights.

Torrey

Overlooking Town of Torrey

Click here to display photos of the slideshow

Fields

The town of Torrey was squeezed in between two patches of Fishlake National Forest, so only a small region close to UT24 can be used for farming.

Fields

The town of Torrey was squeezed in between two patches of Fishlake National Forest, so only a small region close to UT24 can be used for farming.

North Torrey

North Torrey

Fields

Fields

Hotel

The hotel that I stayed for two nights.

RV Park

One block away from the hotel and whose cabins I almost booked on Airbnb (had it not been its cancellation fees).

Just North of the town were some beautiful mesas in Fishlake National Forest, I flew my drone there and took a closer look.

 
Mesa

And here’s the video:

Koosharem Reservoir

The next stop I made was at Koosharem Reservoir along UT24, as I thought photographing a vast body of water between two mountain ranges would be spectacular.

Koosharem Reservoir

Click here to display photos of the slideshow

Koosharem Reservoir

Koosharem Reservoir

Koosharem Reservoir

Waves on Koosharem Reservoir
From the drone’s perspective it’s easier to appreciate how windy it was.

Waves on Koosharem Reservoir
From the drone’s perspective it’s easier to appreciate how windy it was.

Windy Landing

I managed to land with a third of the drone hanging off the table (glad it didn’t fall off), a sign of how windy the day was.

Unfortunately, it was a very windy day, and for the first time I got a “strong wind” warning from my drone as it struggled to stay put against the gale.
It also meant I couldn’t fly too high from the lake, with limited views.

Salina

A small town located at the intersection of a few major highways. Between Salina to the west and Green River to the east, there was 110 miles of Interstate 70 with no service, the longest in the Interstate system.

Yuba Lake

Not willing to give up from Koosharem Reservoir with its winds, I found another body of water, Yuba Lake, on my way to Salt Lake City.

Unlike the lush meadows surrounding Koosharem Reservoir (it’s located in “Grass Valley”), the uncultivated fields surrounding Yuba Lake seemed a little bit desolate with shallow bushes. Despite that, before and after Yuba Lake, Utah Route 28 was traveling between unceasing farmlands.

 
Fields and Highway by Yuba Lake

Overlooking Yuba Lake

 
Road and Landscape

South Santaquin

My final planned stop of the day was in South Santaquin, at exit 242 of I15.
On the map, I saw a few mountains to the east, thinking my drone was a wonderful way to tour them without burdening my legs.

Mountains
“Dry Mountain” on the left.

Unfortunately, those mountains turned out to be too far and too high for my drone’s reach, so I ended up flying close to the highway for most of the time.

Overlooking Interstate 15

 
Interstate 15

And here’s a video clip.

It happened that there was a fire scene to the far west of the highway, with smoke billowing for miles.

Distant Fire Scene
Angle of the rising smoke showed how windy it was that day.

So at 8pm, I arrived at the city of Sandy, UT, where I would be spending the night. After a quick grocery store visit (Unfortunately, I was led by Google Maps to a Walmart first. While Walmart reduced their store hours for COVID, it certainly wasn’t reflected on Google Maps, and I certainly wasn’t alone as quite a few others were turned away at Walmart’s door during my brief visit.) to stock up on food for tonight and tomorrow’s flight, I called it a day.
END

Day 8 of 2020 Utah Trip, Capitol Reef National Park by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.