Capitol Reef National Park
Personal Notes:
Cassidy Arch Trip
This page contains our personal notes on our hike to Cassidy Arch in Capitol Reef National Park.
October 10, 2000
Fruita Campground
We drove down from Sandy on Saturday morning. Arrived shortly after 10:00 a.m. The main Fruita campground, a short distance from the visitor's center, was almost full. In Utah there is a teacher's conference on the Thursday and Friday prior to this weekend every year. With the students off, the parents take advantage of the last four day weekend of the camping season. The local campgrounds tend to be packed. It also seems that many retired couples do their camping in the fall, once the families have retreated back to the cities. So the campgrounds seem to be split between the two age groups. We did find a nice spot in the second, smaller campground.
The weather was nice, mostly sunny on Saturday, with some breeze. It was a bit cool in the shade, but still warm in the sun.
After setting up camp we walked the mile or so from the campground to the visitor's center to buy a new trail map. Our old one had started falling apart at the creases. We found that the Park Service had rearranged the visitor center and added, probably, new offices. We had known the old arrangement for years. It seems to me it was in a very similar configuration all the way back to 1971, when I first visited.
We saw many mule deer, especially in the campground and near our camp. They wander among the tents and trailers all day long. There are orchards around Fruita and the deer feast on the ripe apples. There were several that bedded down near our site.
There were also a good number of chukars wandering through the camp. They sound like a cross between a chicken and a duck. They are about the size of a large grouse or prairie chicken.
There were also the usual ground squirrels coming around to beg, and a variety of small birds fluttering about. We also spotted woodpeckers and, in the evening, the usual bats.
We had some dehydrated food that we had prepared for a Grand Canyon hike several years before. We thought we'd try it and see if it was still good. The chicken and noodles tasted bad, and the Apple Brown Betty was really terrible. They did not preserve well over time. We've decided to stick with the commercially prepared dehydrated foods, at least for most backpacking meals of over one night.
We brought fire wood from home and had a nice, small fire in the barbecue grill at our camp site. Even a small fire is a welcome addition to a chilly autumn evening.
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The temperatures dropped over night, but it didn't freeze. There were dark rain clouds when we first exited the tent on Sunday morning, about 6:30 a.m., to make a run to the restrooms. It was still dark and cold, so we got back into our sleeping bags and crawled out again at 8:30 a.m., which was a late start for us. By then there were a few drops of rain, but not enough to get things wet. We took our time, cleaned up, made breakfast, got our day-packs ready, and hit the trail at about 10:40 a.m.
That evening we didn't want to start a campfire because it was too windy. So we cooked on the old Coleman three-burner stove. I purchased that stove back in 1971 and have used it every year since. We did convert it from white gas to propane several years ago, purchasing a 2.5 pound propane tank to supply the gas. It works great, the fire burns steady and is easier to control, and there's no more pumping necessary.
We tried Backcountry Pantries Mashed Potatoes with gravy and turkey, left over from our more recent trek rim to rim to rim across the Grand Canyon. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It was filling, but somewhat bland for our tastes. We tend more toward the spicy Mexican meals.
We had recently purchase a Coleman camp oven that sits atop the three-burner stove. We had tried it first on Saturday, preparing corn meal muffins, and had a few burn. Anne will need to try it a few times to figure out settings, shelf positions, baking times, and the other quirks of the new contraption. There is a lot of trial and error when attempting these new techniques with outdoor equipment. But that's part of the fun of camping, and after a while it becomes second nature. Just bring a can of chili or something as a back up just in case your experiments don't work.
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Monday morning it was cold again. We boiled water, made a pot of hot tea, and started a small fire with the wood that we didn't use Sunday evening. Anne also tried to use the oven again. This time she tried blueberry muffins. She tried turning off the heat a bit earlier than the instructions recommended, but let the muffins sit in the oven longer. That seemed to work. They came out okay.
A three-legged black cat ran across our campsite. It belonged to the couple in the fifth-wheel trailer across the road. The situation was interesting, since the man also had a bad leg and hobbled around. He had several one-gallon water jugs which he loaded into the back of his truck, drove to the water faucet near the restrooms, then drove back. He'd pour the water into his trailer's fresh water tank, one jug at a time, then repeat the process. He made several trips.
I spoke to a fellow from Kansas who is out here with some friends to hike. Apparently they come out this way at this time of year every year. They hit a different park each trip.
Cohab Canyon Trail / Frying Pan Trail / Cassidy Arch
The air was cool at first, with some cloudiness. We walked from our campsite to the Cohab Canyon trailhead across the road from the main campground. From the trailhead to the entrance to the canyon there are a number of tight, steep switchbacks. Gut it out or take your time, either way the views are worth the effort. The small, narrow canyon is always a delight, with the light playing off the colors of the sandstone and the various weathered "sculptures" along the way. At the junction with the Frying Pan Trail we took that route and hiked to Cassidy Arch. The round trip hike was about 10 miles.
There were not a lot of people out along the trail until we got near Cassidy Arch. There we found about 15 people, mostly elderly, on some sort of hiking tour. There was also a German family and a couple from New York. We spoke with the couple from New York and answered their questions about the area.
The trail seemed to be in good condition. It is generally a well defined route across slick sandstone and down into the washes, tending up and down along its course. Where the trail is obscured, there are well defined cairns to follow. But you do have to watch the trail, especially crossing the broad sandstone slopes, or you can get off trail and disoriented. If you do, just retrace your steps, or stop and spot a cairn, and you're on your way again.
There is lots of slickrock, fantastic panoramic views of this section of the Waterpocket Fold, and to the west, at places, you can see Miner's Mountain and Boulder Mountain looming above, dark against the horizon. The variety of colors is amazing: reds, pinks, golds, yellows, buffs, browns, whites, purples and the full spectrum vegetation colors as well. And if the sandstone is wet, the colors take on different hues, and change even more as the angle of the sun changes through the day and the various seasons. There are the usual junipers and pinyons, plus varieties of cactus and ephedra (Mormon Tea).
The sky was mostly clear during our hike, and for most of the afternoon. Even to the point where it felt hot when we were in the sun. We spotted several lizards out along the trail.
