The plan for our last day in Capitol Reef National Park was a hike along the Cohab Canyon trail. This trail started at the campground. Parking at the orchard added another half mile to the hike but allowed us to easily gather a few more apples on the way home. The strange thing about this canyon hike was just how far uphill you had to climb to get to the entrance.
440 feet straight up to the canyon opening and then another 650 feet up to the Fremont Overlook.
Rest stops on the climb up gave us some beautiful views of the valley below.
It was somewhat difficult to see exactly where the trail was leading, but we finally saw a crack in the face of the rock wall that was the canyon entrance.
At the bottom middle of the picture, where the sunshine starts is the entrance to the canyon. At the bottom edge of the sandstone, there is a soft layer of purplish red with green leaching out...
...what causes the green color is not clear to me. It looks like a copper patina.
This panorama has issues but hopefully serves to show the enormity of the towering landscape.
The combination of water and soft rock creates the strangest formations. You can't help but wonder just how many years of flowing water it took to create something like the pillar below and how long it will be before it finally succumbs to erosion and falls.
There were several slots off of the canyon where you could squeeze back in a short distance, but nothing we found that went through to anything interesting.
This photo encompasses only about 16 inches (vertically) of rock, but what a colorful 16 inches it is!
Small, round (mostly 1-2 feet in diameter) basalt boulders are sprinkled everywhere on the mesas. Yet, there was never volcanic activity here. They were carried here by ancient river floods from the west, before the canyons were carved, leaving them 400 to 600 feet high on the mesas.
We hiked up the Overlook Trail. From the north overlook, we could see from the park entrance all the way to the Hickman Bridge parking area.
There was also a south overlook trail that Joani insisted I should hike alone. I had the trail to myself - never saw another hiker. The view was really the same as we had on the trail up to the canyon, beautiful, but nothing new. Have I gotten jaded, or what?
It was very hot on the mesa with no opportunity for shade and I could tell the view was going to be the same as the climb up the mountain.
I sent David on his way and retreated down to the first shady spot and waited. I may be a wimp, but I'm a wimp without heatstroke.
The mule deer were out in force again at the orchard. We picked another few pounds of apples for the road.
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