Hickman Bridge and Fruita

Today was a day hiking canyons in the sun. We started with a stop in the Capitol Reef visitor's center to check on hikes and buy the boys hats to shade their faces. Both boys were suffering from dry, sensitive skin last night from the combined effect of the dry air, sun, and chlorine in the swimming pool. Ed had burnt the skin down his part and both had pink on the tops of their cheeks. So we got them baseball style hats from the gift shop. Neither looked too excited but as we were walking down our first hike Ed mentioned how much cooler it was on his head and how his eyes were more relaxed. Score one for mom.

Our first hike was to Hickman Bridge - a natural bridge over a seasonal creek bed. It was considered a 'moderate' hike because it is not on level ground but the altitude change was not too tough. We started there because we thought it would be the toughest hike of the day; up and down and direct sun/no shade. It really wasn't all that tough. We really enjoyed the the scenery and the views. We enjoyed a great view of Capitol Dome as we walked up and through wonderful curving rocks. There was a boulder field of rounded black lava rocks which was didn't seem to fit with the geology, but we liked it. The natural bridge was huge; so huge that is was tough to fit in a picture. As we hiked back, we listened to the noise of some kind of insect in the grass. It sounded like a metallic buzz saw at a distance even though they were near the trail.

Next stop was the short boardwalk along the road with a panel of petroglyphs. There were several stick figures in one area and then lots of bighorn sheep. There were easy to interpret because of the curved horns. There were also petroglyphs in another canyon which we saw later but these were the clearest in the park.

We ate our lunch at the picnic area just inside the park. We sat under some very grand old cottonwood trees near a creek. It was very peaceful. We refilled our water bottles to get ready for a hot afternoon of walking.Read more