June 25, 2015, Thursday, Torrey, UT (Capitol Reef NP)
Day 56

We departed Bryce Canyon City and headed east on Highway 12, one of the top ten scenic byways in the U.S., for a 110 mile trip to Torrey for our base to see the Capitol Reef National Park.  The drive took 3 hours and 15 minutes.  Talk about scenic, and harrowing.  Along the way was a portion along the crest of a mountain with barely enough room for the 2 lane road and substantial drop offs on each side.  The white knuckles I experienced brought back memories of Mount Washington last year. Rosemary was near tears. The ride also passed a 9600 foot summit. The coach spent significant time coughing and wheezing while climbing up hill and it refreshed my memory of our Camp Freightliner instructor’s warning that the chassis does not perform well above 7000 feet.  We finally made it to Torrey and checked into Wonderland RV Park. About 4 pm, we drove the car to the NP. Visited the Gifford House (an original house in the former Mormon settlement of Fruita) and bought 2 ice creams for $1 each to eat on the spot and  a strawberry rhubarb pie for later.  Then headed along the scenic drive in the park (8 miles paved) to the end (5 miles unpaved) to the Capitol Gorge hike.  The 1 mile (one way) hike was rated easy to see the “tanks” which are pools of water in the rocks for which the water cannot escape by flow.  After we walked along a dry riverbed about .8 miles we came to a sign that said tanks .2 miles and an arrow pointing up.  We began a climb up the rocky cliff looking for the cairns (small piles of rocks marking the trail).  After awhile, we began debating whether to continue since the climb was in no way “easy” and even required all fours in spots.  We pushed on with the encouragement of other (much younger) hikers.  We finally see a “tank” and it has maybe 5 gallons of water.  A little further and we see a sizeable tank and take a photo and a rest.  We proceed down and all of the rocks seem to look alike.  Could not find one cairn and tried a couple wrong paths (which lead to a cliff) until we found the right trail.  Back to the car. This 2 mile hike took almost 2 hours.