Capitol Reef Adventures

Introduction

This is the story of our Spectacular trip through some of the best sections of Capitol Reef National Park. We left the beaten track and focused on more technically challenging routes.

Trip participants were Kimberly (my wife), Shaylee (my daughter), Kessler (my son), Jeremiah (friend from Canada), Mark (my brother), his son Josh, and my dad.

Burro Wash

Burro Wash was our first adventure on this Capitol Reef Trip. With extreme winds and dust storms, it was a rough night the night before. We ended up setting up our tent in the culvert pipe for some wind shelter. Before we even started the canyon our ears and everything else were filed with dust and sand!

Kimberly, Shaylee, Kessler, Jeremiah and I drove to the head of the canyon to make a full descent with technical gear. Mark, Josh, and my dad would hike from the bottom end and go as far as they could without technical gear.



After climbing to the head of the canyon and seeing some great petrified logs along the way, we took a slightly difficult route variation that included one nice technical pitch, so it would be a good warm up, we dropped in. It was very windy before we hit the slots.



After some tedious bushes and obstacles we found ourselves as the first slot; this one in the Wingate Sandstone. The canyon alternated between open and tight as we continued down.





After the Wingate slot there were several good slots through the Navajo Sandstone and all of them contained some nice downclimbs with a few rappels. We were able to downclimb everything except for three raps and the kids’ skills have improved much in the past year. The kids favorite part of the canyon was the “slide”.







The second to the last rappel required an exposed climb along ledges to get to the rappel station. After that the final big rappel landed us in a huge and impressive chamber that was spectacular. The action wasn’t over yet and there were still many downclimbs and tight squeezes to go.



The canyon eventually opened up and then it was an open walk though the sand through the open desert. It was very windy, so this made it more difficult than it otherwise would have been, but we made it across the desert without stopping. We were all relieved to make it back to camp, even if it was in a windy culvert pipe!



Burro Wash was a grand adventure.

Cottonwood Wash

Cottonwood Wash was our next adventure in Capitol Reef. This time, Shaylee wanted to spend time with her cousin, so Shaylee, Kimberly, Josh (her cousin), Mark (my brother) and my dad would hike as far as they could upcanyon from the bottom. Jeremiah, Kessler and I would descend the entire canyon with technical gear.

We found the approach to upper Cottonwood Wash to be quite pretty. It was easier than the approach to Burro Wash too.



After many minor obstacles, we found ourselves at the first rap into the slot. Jeremiah went first and I last. Kessler had a lot of fun on the raps and challenging downclimbs.





The second rap was into a nice alcove. Normally it has some hanging gardens, but it had been so dry that there wasn’t too much greenery left. The canyon became a very beautiful slanted slot with many banded colors; perhaps the best part of the canyon. The narrows and obstacles continued and there were many more challenging downclimbs to come and two huge dry falls to climb around.

















Eventually we found ourselves at the last rap which was off a deadman cairn, but the narrows and obstacles continued for a long way down canyon. It was all great fun.



















Eventually we made our way all the way through the canyon and back to the second vehicle. This night, we were tired of all the sand and wind so Kim, the kids and I went to go stay at the nearest B & B for a good night’s rest!

Sulphur Creek

Because today was supposed to be the hottest day of the three day weekend, Shaylee, Kessler, Kimberly, Jeremiah and I decided to explore the deep slot canyon containing Sulphur Creek. This is probably the 2nd best non-technical hike in the park, after Halls Creek Narrows.

We started from Chimney Rock and followed the side canyon down to Sulphur Creek. As we continued down canyon we could see people way up on the rim (a NPS roadside overlooks exist up there) 800-900 feet above us. They could see us well enough to wave.





We continued down canyon through the nice narrows. Even though it was a warm day, we still got chilled slightly with all the water around. There were three challenging waterfalls to climb; otherwise the only other challenge was just lots of wading and rocks. The kids had a lot of fun climbing the waterfalls.





The last waterfall was the messiest of all and required some delicate maneuvering. After the last waterfall, it was a nice and pretty walk all the way to the visitor center.

Images

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