Showing posts with label Capital Reef National Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capital Reef National Park. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

The Last Week Spent in the Red, the Marvelous, the Unbelievable :: Winter Sojourn 2014/15

Copyright 2015, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Man and I have been moving about Utah, Arizona for several weeks.  We have seen unbelievable beauty.  We have seen stone, rocks, shapes, mystery, surprises, colors of grey, black, white, cream, orange, multiple shades of red, burgundy, bright red, yellow, blue/gray, green, pink and some purple.

We experienced so much there is no way to record it.  We drove up to and over 8900 feet towing Tana.  We drove a lot of miles, paved roads, 2 lane high ways and a bunch of dirt/gravel roads.

We saw high desert, the Colorado River several times, canyons, vistas that go for miles and miles.  We saw horses, mostly domestic, but a few wild ones too.  Cattle, deer, sheep, bison, birds, and a few skittish little creatures, mammals and reptiles.  NO SNAKES!!!  YA!  We saw snow, just for the record.

We saw vehicles of every shape and form.  Camping equipment, dirt bikes, ATV's and who knows what else. Boats, trailers, rigs boondocking, rigs in campgrounds.  Variety counts!

We took a number of hikes, the last one in Capital Reef at well over 5500 feet with lots of inclines and steps.

We had some odd things happen, for instance, when we were preparing to leave Monument Valley, Cappy managed to get himself in the very back of Tana  with the slides closed.  No, I did not close the slides with him running around, as I always hold him in my arms during that process.  But, I did leave him in Tana with slides closed and went out to assist Man in hooking up.  I had never done that before, and I will never again.  SIGH. Retrieving him involved some climbing on a chair, laying on my belly on the table and a very long stretch, all the while he was talking, err, barking at me.  He did not like being stuck back there, I can tell you that!

We drove the 17 mile Valley of Gods dirt road.  It was dry.  I was happy.




We drove through Monument Valley in Jolly. Jolly got very red.  LOL




Then, there is this, which may now be one of my most fav photos, and it was not planned this way.  I was doing a panoramic photo and Man walked into the side of it.  I just kept going, figuring I could delete.  No deleting this beaut!


We drove Scenic 95 on our way to Capital Reef.  A very long day so filled with beauty I am still overwhelmed.


Tana and Jolly had a photo op in the Glen Canyon Recreation area:




The scenery changes constantly:




We visited Capital Reef, which may be one of the most beautiful National Parks we have.  Shhhh, don't tell anyone, or it will become too popular.




We drove out of the Capital Reef/Torey Utah area on Utah 72, another scenic route, the summit is 8975, yes, we found snow, not much, but, snow:


We are now at Moab, tired, worn out and exhilarated.

I have taken over 2200 photos since March 31st.

We were pretty much "disconnected" from the net from March 31st till April 7th.  Sprint did not like me trying to access the internet via my phone and roaming while we were in Torrey.  They froze my phone for a month. Just on roaming data, but, really??  SIGHHHH. We expected to be disconnected in Monument Valley, did not expect such horrible campground wifi in Torrey.  I screamed several times (poor Man) that I HATE HATE HATE campground wifi.  I always have, and apparently, still do, and always will.  Verizon (my iPad and our air card/modem) has never heard of the Capital Reef area.  No cell company has 100% coverage in the USA.  Verizon sure failed in this specific area.  At least the phones are Sprint and sorta worked.

The dry climate and the high altitude have had some affect on our bodies.  We are busy hydrating and resting.

It was GRAND!!




* I will undoubtedly share more photos of this last week at some time in the future.  It's gonna be a while tho.

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Saturday, October 22, 2011

THE Trip, Day Trip, LONG LONG Day Trip, Part 9, Driving Back to Bryce

CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Wow, it has been some day, and we still have to drive ALL the way back from Capital Reef National Park to Bryce Canyon, Utah.  As a reminder, this 250 some mile, 13.5 hour day trip from Bryce Canyon to Capital Reef  National Park and back again was done on May 15, 2011.  The sun was setting casting a golden tone on the stone.  Awesome.


Below, was in a dark shadow, but, look close, at the deep ravine cutting the landscape into sections.




The layers on this cone shaped formation are, well, what words can I come up with that I have not over used in the last several months of posting.  I started to say, stunning, but I have used stunning so many times.  I went to an online dictionary to see what I might find.   I found synonyms for stunning : amazing, astonishing, astounding, blindsiding, dumbfounding (also dumfounding), eye-opening, flabbergasting, jarring, jaw-dropping, jolting, shocking, startling, surprising, stupefying.  Yep, all of those descriptive words work.



The long road home. It has been some kinda day, we are simply exhausted, and simply aghast at the beauty we found.  And, believe me, over 600 photos were not enough to even start to capture it.


We only have a few days left in Bryce, and there is more to see.  Really, there is!


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Friday, October 21, 2011

THE Trip, Day Trip, LONG LONG Day Trip, Part 8, Capital Reef National Park

CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Last post I shared with you photos of our visit to Capital Reef National Park on May 10, 2011, those photos were of "places" in the park that I could identify.  Today,  just photos, beautiful, scenic photos.  And, to think we almost did not visit Capital Reef.  What a tragic error that would have been.



Below, yes believe that is an orchard on the left side of the photo.





Below, love the swells, the way the stone and formations roll, again, the contrasts are amazing and stunning.   (I have run out of expressive phrases, find myself repeating, time and time again.  Accepting emails and comments with new descriptive phrases, thank you for assisting!  LOL)



Below, another fascinating photo of layers of rock and how beautifully artistic they are.




Below, yes, another wonderful display of textures, solid rock and softer hills.


And, last photo of the day, below, one of my favorites taken during our fast visit to Capital Reef.  Blue skies, light puffy clouds, shadows, some green fauna, varying layers of red and white stunning formations, textures including stone and sand and just a touch of that teal blue for additional contrasts.


Thanks again, to MOC friend Jan for "pushing" us to visit Capital Reef, she said it was a little known jewel, and she was so right.  Only regret, that we could not spend more than 1.5 hours here.  The park deserves so much more.   Believe me, should we ever get back to this area, we will park Tana here and do this park and the area justice, or at least justice to our souls.  A few hikes and many more very slow rides through are on order.


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Thursday, October 20, 2011

THE Trip, Day Trip, LONG LONG Day Trip, Part 7, Capital Reef National Park

CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This day trip took place on May 10, 2011.  We added this 'only short and quick stops' drive through/gawking/astonishing trip at the last minute.  We had driven from Bryce Canyon, through the Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument, on to Boulder Utah and the Anasazi Indian State Park where we were originally going to call it a day and turn around and return the same route.  Then, we changed our minds, 35 miles and about 1 hour and 15 minutes later we arrived:


I'll be presenting my photos of Capital Reef National Park in two posts, this one will contain photos of specific places or formations that I can identify.  The second post will show off the scenery that we saw as we drove through.  It was all too quick for us, but, still, we did get to this lovely park which is a bit off the beaten track.  If MOC friend Jan had not mentioned how totally fabulous this park is Man and I may not have made the effort.   We are so glad we did, listen to her and make the effort.

Chimney Rock, going in and coming out:



The Castle, three views, different locations in the park, different lighting:




Some closer views of portions of The Castle formation, I took these because of the teal/blue coloration, which took my breath away.




Fremont petroglyphs (there were more petroglyphs down a hiking trail/walkway, about 1 mile give or take, sadly, we did not have time to hike it, huge regret on that, sighhhhh):


And a bit closer:


Capital Dome:


Twin Rocks:


Next post, more beautiful scenic photos.  On our 'rushing through' visit to Capital Reef I took about 210 photos in about 1.5 hours.  I know, out of control, and loving every single minute of it!


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