Day 5:
Capitol Reef National Park, Lake Powell, & Moab
Boris and I dawdled again in the morning. Before breaking camp, we hiked a mile or so to the viewpoint and I took some photos.
This is the view of the reservoir and campground area at Capitol Reef. The campground is in the trees beyond and slightly left from the reservoir.
These are other views panning around to the right from the campground. (I suppose I could stitch these together with Photoshop, but that takes a bit of work because they never match up exactly.)
After hiking back down to the campground, we packed up and hit the road. By the time we got started it was after 10 AM.
A short distance east on highway 24, still in the Park, we came upon the orchard with peach and apple trees. The peaches were ripe and very sweet. The apples, not yet. The deal was pick your own, and anything you can eat inside the fence is free. So we picked and ate a few of the sweet peaches. They were delicious.
Here's Paul, picking peaches.
We rode a bit farther east, out of the Park, and found this little cafe, Luna Mesa, for breakfast. Even though it was nearly noon, getting breakfast was no problem. The food was good and very reasonably priced. Our waiter and cook was a recent transplant from California who had come here a few months before to help a friend with the restaurant and just stayed. The horses were unfenced, but seemed content to stay on the property. The teepees are available as accomodations for the night.
After eating, we rode east, and at the junction of Utah highway 24 with highway 95 at Hanksville, I split from Boris and Paul. Paul was eager to return to Minneapolis for the weekend before flying back to Switzerland on Sunday. Boris and Paul headed north on 24 to pick up Interstate 70 toward Colorado. They made it all the way to Denver that evening.
I headed south on Utah 95 and crossed Lake Powell at Glen Canyon. Before crossing Lake Powell, I stopped at the viewpoint at Hite to take these photos of a raptor hovering and the bridge on highway 95 that I would cross a few minutes later. The water level in Lake Powell appeared to be very low compared with the level the last time I was here, in 1996.
On highway 95 southeast of the Lake Powell crossing, I passed Cheese Box Butte. (I love the names they give these things.)
As the highway turns northeast toward Blanding, it winds up and through the dramatic cut in the ridge seen in the photo at right.
Utah 95 ends at the junction with US highway 191 just south of Blanding. I turned north. This scene appears about fifty miles north of Blanding as US 191 approaches Moab.
Passing through Moab, I road Utah highway 128 along the Colorado River northeastward as recommended by Boris. It's a pretty road winding with the river 30 miles through a red rock canyon and meeting Interstate 70 near Cisco.
At dusk I rode west on Interstate 70 and found dinner and accomodations for the night at an inexpensive motel in Green River, Utah.
Return to 2002 trip map.
