We found a lovely place to camp just west of Capitol Reef, about ten minutes from our hike the next morning. We drove through Capitol Reef on our way to our site and again loved the changes in scenery along the way. We passed orchards near Fruita and worked our way back up a mountain into a new landscape. It was still the desert, but now there were junipers all around and the land changed from sandy and dusty to red rock. Suddenly there was so much texture around us and it was a lovely change.
We got up early (for us) the next day in order to meet Tina, Lou and Joe at the trailhead for our Sulphur Creek hike. We dropped one car at the visitor’s center where the trail ended and then headed off. The first couple of miles of the trail were dry and it was so nice to have a mellow stretch where we could catch up with old friends. The hike was not difficult most of the time. We followed the creek as it went downhill and along a lot of it we were able to walk next to the creek or in very shallow (cold) water. We scrambled around a couple of small waterfalls and then we got to the wetter part. Luckily, we had had to walk through a fair bit of water before we hit the first narrow stretch and acclimated a little. We swam/ walked through neck-high (for me) water and hurried into the sun to warm up. After that, we weren’t too careful about trying to stay dry. We just packed our phones into our dry bags and enjoyed the water. We knew that there were three waterfalls that we would have to make our way through/ around. When we got to the last one, the water dropped about 6 feet into a deep lake, but it didn’t look safe enough to slide down and we had a hard time figuring how to get down the steep rock at the side. Luckily, there was a very nice man who came over to assist us. He said that he had watched another group work for half an hour to get across that stretch. Mike and Lou (with their greater height) were able to make their way down after he showed us how he had gotten down, but Tina and I had to pretty much fall into him quite gracelessly in order to make it down without getting hurt or falling into the lake. I honestly have no idea how Joe got down.
We followed the trail to the end and then brought Tina, Lou and Joe back to our site to give them the grand tour of our trailer. They headed off to make it to Boise that night and Mike and I had a relaxing afternoon of doing not much at all.
I feel like a rock star making it onto your blog! So exciting to see all your Utah stops. Utah is magic 🌈⭐️