It comes in threes my dear…

Today was the day of three parks, starting at Capitol Reef, a quick drive through at Bryce and finally settling in at Zion where I’ll spend the next couple of days.

Since the sunrise pictures worked so well yesterday and since my hotel was only 5 miles from Panorama Point it seemed logical to capture sunrise at Capitol Reef. (Note, I am not getting up at 5:50 tomorrow for sunrise in Zion.) The overnight thunderstorms had cleared out and left clear skies and a chilly breeze. There were a handful of photographers setup when I got to the overlook so I grabbed a spot and waited with the rest for the sun to eventually peer over the canyon wall. After about an hour I headed back to the hotel to check out and get changed into cooler clothes for a day of hiking.

I wanted to get to Zion around 6 and with a 4 hour drive plus an hour at Bryce meant I had until about 1pm to play in the park. The Cassidy Arch trail was still not accessible due to the rains so I headed out for the Cohan Canyon trail which I had not done before. It’s probably a good thing there wasn’t anyone ahead of me on the trail because if I could have seen how steep it was I’m not sure I would have continued. The initial ascent is about 400ft in the first quarter mile and then the trail makes a sharp left into the canyon where it’s much less steep except for some of the side trails. The views on the way up were spectacular in the morning light and the rest of the trail was fantastic as well. Definitely worth revisiting. I made it just about to the other end before turning back and doing a short part of the frying pan trail before running out of time.

The drive out of town looked a lot like the day before with afternoon storms starting to build so I think I timed the hike pretty well. My drive to Bryce was on the slightly slower but highly entertaining hwy12 which quickly climbs to 9600ft before descending back down to about 7000. The terrain is incredibly varied with an alpine pass, plateaus and the massive sandstone formations of the Grand Staircase Escalante. At one point the road traverses a narrow spine with sharp drop offs on both sides and awesome views as far as you can see.

I think after Hwy95 claiming the top spot from my previous favorite of Hwy296 in Wyoming that maybe Hwy12 rounds out my top three favorite highways. I wonder if there’s any job opportunities to just drive roads like that point-to-point. Like maybe organ transplant transportation or something.

Eventually this turns off towards Bryce where once again I was greeted with a passing thunderstorm. This passed after a few minutes and I did a quick walk around the Sunrise Point viewpoints before hopping back in the car and continuing to Zion. This was only a further 80 miles but traffic and slower speeds made that time stretch out. Thankfully most of the crawl was once I was in the park itself and it’s no trouble at all to cruise around at 35 while taking in all of the sights. Eventually I made it through the mile long Mt Carmel tunnel and made the turn out of the park into the nearby town of Springdale where the car will remain parked for the next couple of days while I make use of the park shuttle buses.

Tomorrow the plan is to do some easy hikes to let my knees recover from today and then tackle something larger on Wednesday. The Narrows and Hidden Canyon trails, both past favorites, are closed so a good opportunity to find something new.

The selection of pictures from today. I think I’ve taken about 1000 so far between all three cameras. I’ll have to find a better gallery for posting them once I’m home.