not real

[NateGeesaman]

I recently had an awesome overnight trip to the beautiful Capitol Reef National Park with 2 dear old friends of mine. We packed up the car of Friday night with all necessities so we could take off early. We left SLC around 5:30 A.M. so we could arrive before 10:00 A.M. and have a full day to hike before we set up camp. We decided to revisit the Golden Throne trail and enjoy the nice sunny day on a hike with Southern Exposure. The drive to the trail head was as beautiful as ever.

Great Drive 1 C.R.N.P. by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
It was 50 degrees and beautiful on the hike.


Desert Garden by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
This is one of my favorite vistas along the hike and one I remember vividly from my first time on this hike 9 years ago.

Beautiful Trail G>T> by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Golden Throne Trail 3 by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
The beautifully unique rock formations of Capitol Reef:

Capitol Reef Smattering by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Capitol Smattering Close by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
The grandiose Golden Throne is a superb summit to this hike

Golden Throne Pano by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Golden Throne Red Skirt by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
Then it was off to camp at my absolute favorite camping spot smack between the Henry Mountains and Capitol Reef.

Henry's Pano by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
We only had a brief moment with a clear enough sky to do some star shots.

Capitol Reef Camp Trails by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
There was a 50% chance of snow forecast for the next day. We were hoping that the weather would be nice enough for us to embark on the Upper Muley Twist trail, but shortly after I awoke at first light it started to snow. It was snowing hard while we made breakfast, then we had about an hour break from the snow. We made a fire and decided to chill a while and see what the weather did before we headed down to the Muley Twist.

Morning fire by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Camp site view by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
My new (used) car in this moment:

Subie trip #2 by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
The lull in the storm was over and it started to snow again so we abandoned the warm fire and hoped in the car to get on the road before it got much worse.

Great Drive 3 C.R.N.P. by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Great Drive 4 C.R.N.P. by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Great Drive 5 C.R.N.P. by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
The Burr Trail through Capitol Reef is one of my favorite drives ever and I was sad to hear that plans are in motion to pave this amazing road. The dirt road just makes it feel like you are more connected with the land you are driving through and it makes for great photos.
Just off the road beautiful vistas like this are everywhere along both sides of the road.

Green Pano by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

waterpocket pano 3 by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
We decided to skip Muley's Twist on account of the nasty weather and headed to Surprise Canyon which is about a half mile south of the Burr Trail Switchbacks. We stopped shortly after the entrance to the slot canyon just in case of a flash flood, but still got to experience a good amount of it's beauty.

Surprise Canyon Trail by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Surprise Canyon Entrance by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Surprise Canyon Stripe by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Surprise Colors by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
At the mouth of Surprise Canyon, when we were discussing whether or not we felt it was safe to continue, we heard a big thunderclap that settled the discussion. So we went back to the car and started the long slow slippery journey back North.
The skies were beginning to clear a bit by the time we got back on the road.

Waterpocket by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Waterpocket Fold Clouds by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Great Drive 8 C.R.N.P. by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Great Drive 7 C.R.N.P. by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Great Drive 6 C.R.N.P. by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
We could still see the storm edge bulging as it passed over the Waterpocket Fold:

Storm Edge 2 by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

Storm Edge by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
We could see a big hunk of storm that had passed now dominating the Henry Mountains:

Waterpocket pano 5 by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
After a long day of driving, hiking, and shooting photos we made our way back to the visitors center and readied ourselves for the drive home and said goodbye to this magnificent place.
Here is me all dirty and tired in the visitors center parking lot showing Dan my WTF face (jokingly of course) while he was playing with my camera.


WTF Dan by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
Thanks for looking! Cheers.

Featured imaged for slideshow:

 

[Bill]

Great first post Nate, glad to see you made it over here. Capitol Reef is my favorite national park in Utah.
Thats a killer star trail with the camp fire centered near the southern pole, love it.

 

[Nick]

Awesome! And one hell of a first post too! I'm really looking forward to exploring Capitol Reef this spring. I see stuff like this and I want to kick myself for not spending more time there.

 

[pixie1339]

Nice report! Capitol Reef is just sublime. I can't wait to get out there this year.

 

[Udink]

This trip report has got me thinking about a trip to Cap Reef very soon. I think I recognize your campsite. I would imagine since it's your favorite that you wouldn't want to broadband the location. When I drove past there last year there was a youth wilderness group camped there, and it was one of the few good spots that I saw outside of the park. I think someday soon I'm going to camp there and then do some day-hiking to some arches near the top of the Burr Trail switchbacks. Thanks for the great report.

 

[Bill]

This trip report has got me thinking about a trip to Cap Reef very soon. I think I recognize your campsite. I would imagine since it's your favorite that you wouldn't want to broadband the location. When I drove past there last year there was a youth wilderness group camped there, and it was one of the few good spots that I saw outside of the park. I think someday soon I'm going to camp there and then do some day-hiking to some arches near the top of the Burr Trail switchbacks. Thanks for the great report.

Dennis, you do realize this is Capitol Reef and not the San Rafael Reef right?

 

[Udink]

Dennis, you do realize this is Capitol Reef and not the San Rafael Reef right?

Haha, literally

 

[NateGeesaman]

Thanks for all the kind words.

 

[Jammer]

Good stuff. Great report and pics. It's really cool to see it with all the snow. I'm headed there in April, so this got me pumped up.

BTW, you say " I was sad to hear that plans are in motion to pave this amazing road."

There's no new plans to pave this, are there? Kane County did the land grab and paved the portion through the GSENM a while back, but a ranger I spoke with said that the portion within the National Park will NEVER be paved. I know... Never say never, but... it was encouraging at the time (this was about three years ago.)

- Jamal

 

[Yvonne]

I really want to go to Capitol Reef as soon as possible and explore more of its wonderful places.
What a great trip report and wonderful pictures. I really love the ones with the dramatic looking clouds.

 

[NateGeesaman]

Good stuff. Great report and pics. It's really cool to see it with all the snow. I'm headed there in April, so this got me pumped up.

BTW, you say " I was sad to hear that plans are in motion to pave this amazing road."

There's no new plans to pave this, are there? Kane County did the land grab and paved the portion through the GSENM a while back, but a ranger I spoke with said that the portion within the National Park will NEVER be paved. I know... Never say never, but... it was encouraging at the time (this was about three years ago.)

- Jamal

I read this article in the Salt Lake Tribune and it just spooked me: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53078818-90/bremner-burr-county-environmental.html.csp

BTW I really enjoyed your backpacking across Utah and backpacking across Canyonlands videos. It was awesome to see you walking through the Waterpocket and then getting pummeled by hail on the Henry Mts. GOOD STUFF! :twothumbs:

 

[Tyler]

Loved this TR and can't wait to get down to Capitol Reef more. My wife is dieing to do the Muley Twist canyons, so it's definitely high on our priority list. CR is still a bit of a mystery to me as I have not studied it a lot, but have driven by it quite a bit and did my first camping trip there a couple of years ago (and LOVED it).

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Tyler]

By the way, what was your route down there? Did you go Notom-Bullfrog down to the Burr Trail, then back to Hwy 12 (a loop)?

 

[NateGeesaman]

By the way, what was your route down there? Did you go Notom-Bullfrog down to the Burr Trail, then back to Hwy 12 (a loop)?

We took the Notom-Bullfrog road down to the bottom of the switchbacks, but it seemed all the bad weather was happening on top of the cliffs. So we didn't do the loop and just headed back North on the same road after our little hike in Surprise Canyon. I have driven that loop several times and it is quite an amazing drive. I highly recommend it in fall when you can get some colors in Dixie National Forest area of highway 12.


IMG_9944 by NateGeesaman, on Flickr

 

[Tyler]

Cool. So you hiked the Golden Throne from the East side? Very nice.

 

[NateGeesaman]

Cool. So you hiked the Golden Throne from the East side? Very nice.

I actually took the trail that is on the West side. I camped on the East side. The trail head and where I camped are about a 40 minute beautiful drive away from each other even though they are very close.

 

[Tyler]

I actually took the trail that is on the West side. I camped on the East side. The trail head and where I camped are about a 40 minute beautiful drive away from each other even though they are very close.

Cool. Again, thanks for all the info and the great TR. Looking forward to more.

 

[Artemus]

I read this article in the Salt Lake Tribune and it just spooked me: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53078818-90/bremner-burr-county-environmental.html.csp

This is another case of gamesmanship by the county. There will always be pressure to continue to develop our wild places and we need to remain vigilant or development will happen under the radar. Did you notice the Notom road north of the switchbacks has been super-graded and all the dirt road intersections have real street signs like "1200 South" now? These are way out in the middle of nowhere with no community within tens of miles. Their philosophy is "you can't call a "1200 south road" "wilderness" now can you?" Gamesmanship.