Hitting the trails!

Saturday
After breakfast, Roger, Jen, Laura and I headed down to Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah for a few days, about 3 1/2 hours driving time. Teresa was leaving Sunday morning and isn’t into hiking, so we left Jason and Teresa to have a quiet day at home watching movies!
We arrived late afternoon, and drove directly into the Park. Located in the heart of red rock country, Capitol Reef National Park is filled with cliffs, canyons, domes, and bridges in the Waterpocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles. To explore much of the park, you need a high clearance vehicle, with 4 wheel drive being advised, since the roads are just dirt roads, and it’s a very remote area. However, we were sticking to the more accessible areas! This afternoon’s trail, the Fremont River trail, was in the Fruita area of the park, the administrative centre of the park, and a historic agricultural site, featuring over 2500 fruit and nut trees, including apples, pears, apricots, peaches and plums, some of the oldest ones having been planted by the Mormon settlers. The orchards are still maintained, and in season, visitors are free to walk amongst areas of the orchards and pick the fruit. As you can see from my collage, starting top right, our trail began gently along the Fremont river, before climbing the rocky slopes of the valley, the views getting better and better as you climb - about 4 miles return. Having completed our hike, we returned to the gateway town of Torrey, where our Airbnb was located. Our apartment turned out to be a great spacious place, our bedroom having a king size bed, and the girls room having two queen sized beds, and both with their own bathrooms. Jen fixed us a quick but delicious dinner, then we had a game of Boggle. I’ve added a couple of extra shots taken from the car as we were driving in.
Step count: 11,268