Capitol Reef National Park in May

I was so excited and did so well at posting on this blog until I got pregnant and sick and winter hit, so it's been almost a year. Sorry, but life goes on and the Hansens get out camping again eventually! This weekend was our new baby's first camping adventure. He's 2 1/2 months old and the perfect age for camping. Ideally he'd be sleeping through the night by now, but we survived. He's not the hard one, the hard one is the two year old, and he's not hard during the actual camping, he's hard on the drive to and from.  So we just try to stay a little closer to home.

We sure live in an outdoor lover's paradise here in Utah. This weekend we decided to try out Capitol Reef National Park.  It's a little over 2 hours off the main highway, so it was not nearly as crowded as some of the others like Zion's or the Grand Canyon, but I think it was equally as stunning.  With river hikes, dry river bed slot canyons, desert landscapes, petroglyphs, historic sites, and beautiful picnic areas, we will definitely go back.

We left early Friday morning and got to the park by lunch time. The campground was full, but we had a tip on a little dirt road called Sulfur Creek Road just east of the town of Torrey where we just threw down for the night.  I would advise taking a good tent as the wind is usually ripping through these desert areas.  We had a hard time getting our stakes into the sandstone, though a pop up tent would do fine.

These are the bigger kids hiking Hickman Bridge, poor B was a little outnumbered by the ladies, but he stole a pink hat to feel more a part of the clan.

After a quick lunch we hiked to Hickman Bridge.  It's about a mile from the parking lot to the natural bridge. It was beautiful and you actually hike through the middle of it and around a little loop.  My four year old did great and walked the whole way.

After the hike we crashed at the picnic area in the park. It's beautiful and grassy with shade trees and access to a little stream where the kids threw rocks and played in the mud. My two year old went for a little swim on accident, but it was warm enough we just dressed him down to his diaper and he continued romping around.  After playing in the water we ate dinner and watched as the deer and turkeys came grazing through the grassy areas. I won't admit to it, but maybe the kids had fun chasing the wildlife around. The poor tourists who had never seen a deer before, they were out of luck after our visit.

The nice part about camping on Sulfur Creek Road was that we had the place to ourselves and had no one driving past in the middle of the night and it was quiet. My kids could cry or be loud all night long and only keep us up.

Saturday morning we cooked our eggs in boiling water in ziplock sandwich baggies, loaded up everything and went back into the park. This time we explored the Grand Wash.  We just parked on the highway and hiked up the canyon for as long as we wanted.  Then we turned around and came back down.  The canyon never narrowed down like in Escalante, but still fun to zigzag around and see everything.

Petroglyphs in Grand Wash

Grand Wash

We liked the picnic area so much we went back for lunch for a repeat of playing in the river.  After we ate we stopped by the Freemont Petroglyphs.  They were pretty neat to see, but mostly the kids enjoyed petting the thousands of little caterpillars that were crawling along the boardwalks.  They were pretty cool.

Some nice parts of this park are 1) There's no fee to enter  2) Not so crowded 3) There are lots of little side activities that require almost little or no hiking 4) There are fun activities spring/summer/and fall

Family Photo at Chimney Rock

We could spend a week in this national Park and not even scratch the surface of what's down there.  I definitely want to go back in the summer.

Our bucket list for future Capitol Reef visits:
Bum sliding in Sulfur Creek
Leaping into Deep Creek Pool
Hiking the slots in Burro Wash
Hiking Sulfur Creek just across from Chimney Rock down to the Visitor Center
Driving Capitol Gorge Road exploring the canyons and slots
Hiking the Halls Creek Narrows

Escalante in May

In the beginning of May we took all four kids and met my parents and my brother and his wife out by Escalante, Utah.  We drove about 25 miles down the Hole in the Rock road and pulled off another road going west toward 50 Mile Mesa and camped out on the dirt road for 3 nights and 3 days.

Day 1

We drove further down the Hole in the Rock road and took a turn off left just before Dance Hall Rock and drove the dirt road to the end.  We hiked about two miles into Coyote Gulch to see a beautiful arch and hike down what is called Crack in the Wall.  We handed the kids down the crack and had lunch at the bottom while they played in the sand and we enjoyed the view of the arch as a rain storm approached. The flowers and cactus were all in bloom with oranges, yellows, reds, pinks, purples, and whites.  Each little depression in the rock had its own pristine flower garden.

Summer with a flowering prickly pear cactus

Clint trying to hike Hank through Crack in the Wall. It was so tight we each took and arm and shimmied him through, Hank didn't particularly enjoy this adventure.

The arch with the rain in the background, it was really neat until the rain  hit us and started pouring off the rock.

Samantha was easily able to hike the Crack in the Wall while 8 months pregnant, though much more and she wouldn't fit through the crack or through some of the canyons. 

We then hiked the 2 miles back to the car, though we stayed on the rock to avoid trudging through the sand on the trail. The kids were a little worn out from the rain and the cold, Ali said to Grandma Debi, "I don't think Pappa had a very good idea."  After lunch and a little rest they recovered well and we went to our next adventure.

Right about where we pulled off to go camp is a sign called Dry Wash.  That's where you turn off to go hike Peek-a-Boo, Spooky, and Brimstone Canyons.  It was a Thursday, so we had the place to ourselves.  It's about a mile and a half hike downhill to the start of Peek-a-Boo.  We climbed up the rock and started in.  I wasn't sure what to do with the kids, but we just unloaded the kid backpacks and carried Hank on our shoulders.  He wasn't super happy about it, especially when we had to snake him through narrow spots by each holding an arm, but the 3 and 6 year old girls had a riot!!! We went up Peek-a-Boo, hiked around a short little trail and then went down Spooky.  I can't imagine how you would do this with crowds of people. There's just barely room for one person at a time, so passing is virtually impossible.  There were a few little pools and tricky spots where we had to hand the kids down to each other, but we never needed ropes or anything. These were probably my favorite hikes of the trip. I don't have tons of pictures because we were having too much fun, but here's a couple.

This is the beginning of Peek-a-Boo

Clint got the kids up into Peek-a-Boo and turned around to help my sister-in-law up the cliff and as he had his hands tied helping her, Hank started crawling into the muddy, dirty pool of water.  He wanted to go for a swim!! YUCKY

Just one of many tricky spots

I think I have the coolest, toughest kiddos around!!

Exiting Peek-a-Boo before hiking into Spooky

Two happy hikers in Peek-a-Boo!!

Day 2

We drove back towards Escalante on Hole in the Rock Road to the 2nd cattle guard from the pavement and hiked about 2 miles down into the wash and up into Zebra.  This was a water hike, so we left an adult at the bottom with the kiddos and some sand toys and took turns hiking Zebra. It was only about 200 yards to a pretty gnarly rock fall where we turned around.  Ali hiked the whole thing on Uncle Ty's shoulders.  It was armpit deep water for me in places (waist deep for most normal people), but sooo amazing. The rock literally has zebra stripes.  There were all these neat rocks embedded in the sand stone and when they erode out they have sand stone in the middle so they turn into hollow bowls when they break in half.

Clint in Zebra

Ali hiking Zebra in style.

Kelli and Ali in Zebra.

After we hiked Zebra the kids were wiped out so Clint and I hoofed it out of there and my parents did a canyon called Tunnel.  It's about a half mile down the wash from Zebra. It's not very long but full of freezing cold water.

This is tunnel, the canyon closes in on itself in the top it's sooo narrow.

Clint and I went back to the truck to get some lunch and some fresh water. As we sat around waiting for the Tunnel hikers, Clint took the kids over to a tree to sit in the shade. He set Hank down in the sand to play but Hank kept trying to eat the cow pies, so Clint moved Hank behind him by a rock. He turned around for a second and turned back and a rattlesnake was slithering past within 3 inches of Hank. Clint grabbed Hank and dashed out of there. I don't know if I've ever seen Clint so panicked. Luckily the snake was not angry or irritated and luckily Hank didn't try to grab that cool looking slithery thing.  We saw several snakes while we were hiking. Watch out for them in the shade in the hot part of the day. They are like us and are trying to escape the heat.  Clint was funny, he went back to look at the snake and thank it for not biting our baby.  When he came back he said, "That snake was good to us, so I didn't even poke it." (He likes to hear them rattle)

One of many rattlesnakes we saw on this trip

Day 3

We packed up the tents and drove up to Lower Calf Creek Falls.  This is one of the most beautiful drives I've ever been on. We had done it on the way to Escalante in the dark and missed it.  AMAZING!!! I totally want to do this on a road bike, though the shoulder is pretty narrow and dangerous.  We were told that Lower Calf Creek was pretty easy and flat and that it was a good kid hike. I probably wouldn't do it again until the kids are older. It was LONG and hot and up and down the whole way. Though the six year old stud muffins made it.  The kids almost had a melt down at the end, but thanks to some nice fellow hikers, I got a stash of gummy bears to revive the gummy bear fairy.  The gummy bear fairy dropped gummy bears along the way for the kids to keep them going. The falls were beautiful and some in our party took a swim.  We actually got cold by the falls, so we went downstream a little ways and let the kids play in the water where the falls weren't misting us and making us chili. The water was still freezing, but even Hank got in and splashed some. He would yelp when the water got as deep as his diaper. He didn't like the cold water touching him there I guess. We tried to get my mom's dog to swim across the stream, but the little chicken just whined and yelped until we saved her!

Family photo at Lower Calf Creek Falls

Summer, Hank and Ali playing in the river downstream from the falls.

After the falls we had lunch at the picnic tables in the parking lot and hit the road home. The drive got even more spectacular as we drove down a skinny road between two canyons that fell down below us. We then dropped down into the mountains and went past Capitol Reef National Monument. I think that will be our next big adventure in the fall. It looked beautiful.  All in all it was an incredible trip. 

 We love just throwing down and camping out wherever and not having to listen to dogs bark or loud music or drinking parties. We also like not having to worry about our kids crying and waking up the neighbors.  We bring plenty of water and some solar showers, so after a long sweaty hike we can take a shower with water warmed by the sun.  Even Hank got a shower and loved it! The cows would come around and look at us, Clint called them white faced deer, and Ali gathered some cow pies to burn them just like the pioneers did. They do burn, and they aren't even that stinky.