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- Jul 23, 2013
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This past weekend my family and I went down to Torrey so I could help my father-in-law get closer to finishing a roof on a cabin he's been building down there all summer. I had hoped to take my family down through the Sulpher Creek narrows on Sunday but rain spoiled those plans in a hurry. It was quite rainy all weekend, actually, but there were very little breaks in the rain from Saturday evening until late Sunday afternoon. I've been down there at least a dozen times now and have never seen it rain so much as it did this past weekend.
So what do you do when rain spoils your hiking plans? Go chasing down flash floods and waterfalls of course! We actually got in the car late Sunday afternoon and drove down into the Park (Capitol Reef) to see what, if any, visual treasures the rains from the weekend had created. Given the mass amount of rain that had come down all night and all day, I had thought for sure that both Sulphur and the Fremont would be running really high already so I was surprised to find Sulphur running at its normal flow when passing over it by the Visitor Center. In fact, the whole Park seemed to have missed out on most of the rain that had been making its way off Boulder, through Torrey, and onto Thousand Lake Mountain. We decided it would still be worth the trip into the Park if we pulled over and picked a bag of some of the famous Fruita apples from one of their orchards. As the apples were weighed and paid for, some of the rain had finally started to stretch out into the Park.
With the rain coming down, we continued down along Highway 24 hoping to catch any waterfalls that might be pouring down off the cliffs along the road but unfortunately, didn't see much of anything. We turned around at the cabin not far past the exit of Grand Wash and were then set to head back to Torrey, however, when passing back over Sulphur, the creek was running much higher than before when I looked out to my left behind the Visitor Center, but strangely, it was still at normal level when we looked right. It was then that a good flood wave pushed out from under the bridge.
With a new sense of excitement, I swung the car around and raced the wave back down into Fruita. We found a spot to pull over just off the highway not far from the schoolhouse and cut through the edge of an orchard to await the oncoming wave. Below is a video and some images showing how quickly the Park had transformed in just the hour we were there. The cliffs along the side of the highway that had been dry only an hour before were gushing with over a dozen waterfalls between Fruita and the Fremont River Falls. We stopped for pictures of as many as we could.
Fortunately, the rain and clouds finally subsided late Sunday allowing me to spend my first night in a cheap travel hammock I had picked up from Walmart earlier this summer. I don't have a good set up of trees in my own yard to use it and didn't want to commit to a hammock sleep system until I got to try it out with the option to move out into more comfortable sleeping arrangement should it prove uncomfortable at any point in the night. My in-laws property proved to be a prime opportunity to for a hammock sleep test. But that's a discussion for another thread. I'll just say here that it proved to be comfortable enough to leave my tent at home on certain trips in the future.
The weather held up on Monday and after a morning of unsuccessful fishing with my daughters up at Lower Bowns and an afternoon of putting in some more work on the roof of the cabin, I had my wife drop my little son and me off at the Hickman Bridge TH so that we could do an end to end hike through Cohab Canyon while my wife and daughters picked some more apples before meeting back up down in the Fruita picnic area.
While many of our original plans for the weekend were thwarted by weather, we made the best of it and actually got to experience some spectacular sights that you just can't get everyday down in Capitol Reef. I'm actually quite happy the weather did what it did. The Sulpher Creek hike will still be there for another day.
All this excitement got me thinking...what do you all do when torrential rainstorms spoil your hiking plans or other outdoor activities for the day? Do you get your camera ready in hopes of catching floods, falls, and/or rainbows? Do you coil up to a book, music, or movie? Do you get out some cards or other game to pass time when in the company of another? Do you lay back and just relax into a nap induced by the natural sound of rain beating down on the outside of whatever shelter you happen to be under? What are your rainy day plan B's? Perhaps this would make for a good poll?
Featured image for home page:
So what do you do when rain spoils your hiking plans? Go chasing down flash floods and waterfalls of course! We actually got in the car late Sunday afternoon and drove down into the Park (Capitol Reef) to see what, if any, visual treasures the rains from the weekend had created. Given the mass amount of rain that had come down all night and all day, I had thought for sure that both Sulphur and the Fremont would be running really high already so I was surprised to find Sulphur running at its normal flow when passing over it by the Visitor Center. In fact, the whole Park seemed to have missed out on most of the rain that had been making its way off Boulder, through Torrey, and onto Thousand Lake Mountain. We decided it would still be worth the trip into the Park if we pulled over and picked a bag of some of the famous Fruita apples from one of their orchards. As the apples were weighed and paid for, some of the rain had finally started to stretch out into the Park.
With the rain coming down, we continued down along Highway 24 hoping to catch any waterfalls that might be pouring down off the cliffs along the road but unfortunately, didn't see much of anything. We turned around at the cabin not far past the exit of Grand Wash and were then set to head back to Torrey, however, when passing back over Sulphur, the creek was running much higher than before when I looked out to my left behind the Visitor Center, but strangely, it was still at normal level when we looked right. It was then that a good flood wave pushed out from under the bridge.
With a new sense of excitement, I swung the car around and raced the wave back down into Fruita. We found a spot to pull over just off the highway not far from the schoolhouse and cut through the edge of an orchard to await the oncoming wave. Below is a video and some images showing how quickly the Park had transformed in just the hour we were there. The cliffs along the side of the highway that had been dry only an hour before were gushing with over a dozen waterfalls between Fruita and the Fremont River Falls. We stopped for pictures of as many as we could.
Fortunately, the rain and clouds finally subsided late Sunday allowing me to spend my first night in a cheap travel hammock I had picked up from Walmart earlier this summer. I don't have a good set up of trees in my own yard to use it and didn't want to commit to a hammock sleep system until I got to try it out with the option to move out into more comfortable sleeping arrangement should it prove uncomfortable at any point in the night. My in-laws property proved to be a prime opportunity to for a hammock sleep test. But that's a discussion for another thread. I'll just say here that it proved to be comfortable enough to leave my tent at home on certain trips in the future.
The weather held up on Monday and after a morning of unsuccessful fishing with my daughters up at Lower Bowns and an afternoon of putting in some more work on the roof of the cabin, I had my wife drop my little son and me off at the Hickman Bridge TH so that we could do an end to end hike through Cohab Canyon while my wife and daughters picked some more apples before meeting back up down in the Fruita picnic area.
While many of our original plans for the weekend were thwarted by weather, we made the best of it and actually got to experience some spectacular sights that you just can't get everyday down in Capitol Reef. I'm actually quite happy the weather did what it did. The Sulpher Creek hike will still be there for another day.
All this excitement got me thinking...what do you all do when torrential rainstorms spoil your hiking plans or other outdoor activities for the day? Do you get your camera ready in hopes of catching floods, falls, and/or rainbows? Do you coil up to a book, music, or movie? Do you get out some cards or other game to pass time when in the company of another? Do you lay back and just relax into a nap induced by the natural sound of rain beating down on the outside of whatever shelter you happen to be under? What are your rainy day plan B's? Perhaps this would make for a good poll?
Featured image for home page:
