capitol reef

 We headed down to Capitol Reef National Park this past weekend with a group of friends to do a little camping and hiking.  It was AWESOME! We had reservations for the group campsite, which was perfect for our group -- plenty of tenting space, picnic tables, and a flush toilet. Our first hiking adventure took us to Cassidy Arch.  I love this picture of big and little brother on the trail. Matthew stopped to pose for this shot with the canyon walls in the background.

 Here is our first look at Cassidy Arch -- our destination.

 This is one of the few arches that you can actually walk out on and cross.  It looks sketchy from this vantage point, but really it's a good 8 feet wide and flat, you don't even know you're on top of an arch.  This vantage point also looks down into the big canyon and is a bit ominous.  I went out onto the arch and hopefully I'll get a picture of that to post later.

 Love this place!

 One of the best things about Capitol Reef is its abundant little caves, arches, and slot canyons.  This is Amy, Jacob & Matthew sitting in a little cave.

 Matthew in one of the little slot canyons.

 Matthew crawling through an arch just his size.

 A photo of the teenagers.  Emily, Mackay, Jason, Jared, Ryan, Taylor, and Jacob, Mark & Matthew (not teenagers, but lucky enough to get in the photo!)  These kids rarely got their pictures taken because they were always hiking fast and ahead of the rest of us.  They were our "trail scouts", or maybe they were just avoiding parental supervision.  Whichever, they had a good time doing it!

 Mark & Matthew with this way cool volcano looking mountain in the background.

 Another one of those fun caves and ledges with Jeremy, Amy, Jacob & Matthew.

 Jacob found that climbing this tree in the campground was the perfect place to play his DS while cooling off between hikes.

 Jacob & Matthew.

 Matthew in his own personal cave.

 Yet another cave on a ledge, perfectly shaped for resting little bodies with tired feet.

 Jacob in a slot canyon.  As he explored this canyon we warned him not to get stuck because the slot was too narrow for us to rescue him.  Fortunately, he listened!

 Matthew hiding out.

 The above picture was taken in Cohab Canyon.  This is some of our group climbing up onto a ledge that led back into a cave. Below is Jacob in the green shirt.

 Another fun discovery on that ledge was a little cave that if you crawled up into it, you could hang out your hands and legs from the holes.  This is Jacob's hands and foot.

 The view from the top of Cohab Canyon Trail.

We had quite an adventure on Friday afternoon as we set out on the Sulpher Creek Trail.  It was supposed to be a cool hike involving lots of water and waterfalls.  A bunch of us set out at the trailhead and the one person who had been down that trail before told us to go ahead while he waited for some late-comers.  We were supposed to stop when we got to the creek, which was not too far, and wait for everyone to catch up.  So, we set out.  We hiked and hiked and hiked on a flat dry riverbed trail.  No creek could be found.  Was it dried up?  Did we miss something?  We'd been walking a long time. While we stopped for a break, a couple of people from the group walked back to see if they could find the late-comers.  Nope.  They were nowhere. We finally decided that we must have missed a turnoff somewhere.  Looking around we realized we weren't too far from the highway, so we decided our best bet at this point was to hike to the highway and walk the highway back to the trailhead and our cars.  We had probably hiked about 5 miles.  At the trailhead we drove down to the visitors center and got on the trail going "backwards".  Matthew & Jacob decided they weren't walking another foot, so the 3 of us stayed at the visitors center while the others took off.  Fortunately, everyone ended up together at the bottom of the last waterfall of the original hike.  Our group had apparently missed a turnoff for the creek and thus missed the other waterfalls and scenic hike that the late-comers had enjoyed.  Lesson learned -- stay with the person who knows the trail!  All in all, it was a great weekend!