For our third stop of Utah's mighty 5 national parks, we hiked Capitol Reef! The hike was only a 2 mile round trip, but included lots of inclines and declines in elevation and the final destination was incredible. The beginning of the trail went parallel to the Fremont river and quickly turned into lots of stairs.

When I first saw this, I thought it was the Hickman Bridge Arch. It seemed to small so I kept hiking further.

As I approached the actual arch, I was agape and taken aback. "This thing is massive!" I thought as i kept walking closer.

I was really grateful that I made it here early and I was the only one on the trail. I was able to really take it all in and spent almost a half hour taking pictures of the arch.

On the way back from the arch I found this cactus in full bloom, and there was a honey bee inside! What are the chances??

As I approached the trail head parking lot I saw that there were a few more cars and then rain started to come down. I camped out in the van for almost an hour as the rain came down, hoping we could hit another trail. In the meantime I was transferring the videos and pictures to my laptop, to make room for the drive lapses to the new campsite. The rain did not see like it was getting any better, so I decided to call it a day and started heading to my next free campsite in Marysvale, Utah.

I still have a video to upload detailing the hike to Grand View Point, in Canyonlands. Unfortunately, my internet speed is < 100kbps where I am and cannot upload gigabyte videos to Dtube. I just finished another video detailing this hike at Capitol Reef as well. So please forgive me for uploading out of order this week and I promise to have these two hiking videos uploaded to Dtube after this weekend.

Stay tuned for Bryce Canyon National Park and the best for last ZION!