Picks and Pans – Capitol Reef National Park

The valley surrounded by Capitol Reef was settled in the 1890s by Mormons participating in the San Juan mission to settle southwestern Utah. They arrived in the desert and decided the next logical thing to do was to plant extensive fruit orchards (as anyone would when moving into a sandstone canyon). Thing is, it actually worked. The fruit orchards planted by these insanely industrious (or industriously insane) folks are still producing peaches, pears, apples, cherries and apricots to this day, using the same irrigation channels built by the original settlers. The only campground in Capitol Reef is located amongst these orchards and if you show up at the right time of year, you can eat all the fruit your little heart desires. We had a great night hanging out under the apple tree at our site, listening to the wind blow through the canyon and even learning how to make fire from resources right in the canyon from our helpful and informative park ranger.

Since we were headed out to Bryce later in the day, we decided to take one of the shorter hikes in Capitol Reef, the Cassidy Arch trail (named after Butch Cassidy, rumor is he had a hideout up there). The 3.5 mile roundtrip hike took us from Grand Wash, one of the main channels through the bottom of the canyon, all the way up to above the natural arch. When approaching the arch, the trail winds across slick rock — I had a great time jumping from rock to rock doing my very best mountain goat impersonation. And the arch was beautiful, although it took a little work to appreciate it while Sean was pretending to fall off the edge.