Capital Reef National Park - Day 2

October 29, 2018

Our first stop Sunday morning was to a little pullout just inside the boundaries of the park called Panorama Point. Honestly I didn't have that high of hopes, but we figured we'd drive up the little road to see what we could see.

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I think we were all very pleased with what we found.

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The views were gorgeous! And very "panoramic" I must say.

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From there we decided to drive down Utah State Route 24 to try and find the Freemont River Waterfall. Unfortunately when we got to the pull out for the falls there was a signed staked up stating no one was aloud to go past the road barrier. Bummer.
Heading back from the falls we pulled off a number of times. First was to the Hickman Bridge Trail to hike to the Hickman Natural Bridge.
The weather was perfect for hiking this time of year; nice and crisp and cool without being too chilly. On top of that we nearly had the park to ourselves AND got to witness the brilliant fall colors.
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It made for a really fun hike.
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And the "natural bridge" (aka arch) wasn't too shabby either.
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I think the trees really stole the show though.
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They were such a vibrant shade of gold. So pretty!
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From Hickman Bridge we pit-stopped again to check out the petroglyphs. I think the glyphs are the thing the park is really known for. There's quite a bit of them, and I highly recommend checking them out. We didn't take any pictures though, couldn't quite get close enough for something the old iPhone would pick up.
After the petroglyphs we decided to embark on one last hike called Chimney Rock. This rock feature is the first big one you notice when driving into the park (from the west) and after driving past it a handful of times we decided to see what all the hubub was about.
None of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into, but it turned out to be my favorite part of the whole trip. The hike itself is only about 3-4 miles round trip. Its pretty steep at the beginning though, and takes you nearly straight up on top of a big butte looking over the whole valley.
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What is it about being on top of high places? I know I've mentioned this before but man... its just so cool! We had a lot of fun exploring up there throwing rocks off the edge and waiting to see how long it took before we could hear them hit the bottom. SOOO long. It was also fun freaking Alex out a bit with how close we got to the edge... made for some nice pics though.
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The formation to the right of this picture is Chimney Rock
After having too much fun near the cliffs edge we continued on the trail which wound up and around to the other side of the butte, giving us more good views of the valley below.
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We eventually made it to the far end of the butte and rather than completing the loop "inland" decided to follow the trail back along the cliff edge.
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What a fun hike and an awesome way to end a great weekend. Thanks to Shannon and Alex for keeping me company and humoring me along the way.
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