Days 14, 15, and 16– June 2 – 4 Capitol Reef: Hot, Dry and Hard Work

My hiking partner Helen took this picture during our backpacking through the Lower Muley Twist

Ah, where do I start with the past few days? I guess I’ll start with the first day, which was mostly travel and orienting.

The scenic gravel route, winding down the mountain

I left Calf Creek early, before 7 a.m., so I would have plenty of time to be at the Capitol Reef Visitor’s Center at 4 p.m. to meet Helen.  I took the most scenic drive I could, and the views didn’t disappoint. The Burr Trail Road is well known in the area, especially the eastern end of it where the road make huge zigzag scars in the mountain, switching back and forth at a steep grade, bringing its travelers to the bottom quickly and precariously.  This last part is gravel, as is much of the last 50 miles into Capitol Reef from that direction. The new CR-V is certainly getting its share of washboard gravel and rocky dirt roads.

Ready to climb over the waterfold to Lower Muley Twist

I arrived at Capitol Reef around noon, so I headed into the nearest town, Torrey, Utah, and spent the afternoon rather leisurely. I caught up here, getting pictures loaded and the blog updated, I had a smoothy and a quite spendy dark chocolate caramel, and I sorted my backpacking supplies and packed the behemoth of a backpack I was to carry for miles and live out of for the next four days. Just as I was finishing up, I realized I hadn’t taken care of the camera situation fully. I needed to order a new charger and an extra battery and have it delivered to somewhere in Torrey by the end of the week.

View of the entire waterfold from the trail head. I didn't know then that we'd be hiking over that. Silly me.

I made arrangements with the Chuck Wagon Store and Lodge to have it shipped there, and then I got on line and started to look for what I needed. I soon realized there were, as there always are, many many options when it comes to electronics. I called Jesse, who helps me with so much, but especially all things electronic, and asked his advice. As we were discussing what I needed and how much I wanted to spend, the clock was ticking and I was getting anxious about meeting Helen on time. Jesse generously offered to finish the process for me, making sure I got what I needed by the upcoming Friday.

Campsite the 1st night. That's a drop off where the red ends.

Once that was taken care of, I headed to meet my backpacking partner for what I thought would be the next four days.

Helen is a sweet, gentile woman from Houston, but who has been living in Florida for the past few years. She’s in her early 40s, and she is soft-spoken and cheerful, speaking in that soft drawl I grew up with in Texas and Oklahoma. I let Helen take the lead planning our route as she’d backpacked in part of the park before. She wanted to combine the Lower Muley Twist with the Hall’s Narrows. Now this meant nothing to me as I’m sure it means nothing to you. But the ranger was quick to inform us that the Narrows had places where the trail was covered with six feet of water and we’d have to swim parts of it. I was quite relieved to hear Helen say that we didn’t want to do that.  We decided we would hike down to the Narrows on the second half of the trip, turning around when we hit the deep water.

We also inquired about water on the rest of the trail – I was sure I wasn’t interested in carrying more than a day’s worth of water at any time, as water is one of a hiker’s heaviest items, coming in at about 8 pounds per gallon. One gallon is my limit. We were told the Muley Tanks had water in them, which we planned to hit by the end of the first full day. Water situation solved, or so I thought.

So the route was planned, and we headed to the end point of the trip to drop off my car at an overlook with a trail going into the canyon. This end point was also the halfway point, as we would hike by the overlook as we headed down to the Narrows. This turned out to be a very fortunate situation.

Once my car was dropped off, at the end of a very rocky road that utilized my CR-V’s AWD and high clearance, we walked back to Helen’s car, which couldn’t make it all the way down the road. We took her car down to The Post, the place we were starting the hike. We decided, as it was already getting near dusk, to hike the obligatory half-mile from the trail head to set up camp, and not much further. This half-mile had us on top of the first row of the waterfold – a massive double wall of stone that borders one side of the wash which makes up the Muley Twist.

This is what we hiked over - the second part of the waterfold.

The climb up to that first campsite was steep, but I don’t remember it as being too difficult. I pitched my tent and Helen laid out her sleeping pad and quilt – the combination being all backpacking minimalists use for sleeping. Helen tried to convince me she would have me sleeping out of my tent by the end of the hike, but I assured her that little wall of netting the tent affords was imperative to my comfort and ability to function. I do not like the idea of creatures joining me while I sleep. I have to admit, sitting there on top of that small mountain, looking at the countless stars only a sky void of light pollution can exhibit, it was hard to go inside the tent.

View from the top of the fold

The next morning, we broke camp early. Helen made sure I was awake before 6 a.m. by announcing that it was light out. We were on the trail by 6:30, and the word trail is a bit of a stretch. We had about a mile to cover that was almost all sheer rock, marked by cairns, and some parts we had to walk at angles that forced us to lean into the wall and hope our feet stuck. Helen doesn’t wear boots, by the way. She wears the toed footwear – it’s thin and light weight, and every time I watched her take a step I wondered how in the world it didn’t hurt her feet through those thin soles.

Once we made it across the waterpocket and down into the wash, we were pretty happy with ourselves. It was a very difficult crossing, and looking back at it, we wondered how in the world we had crossed it. But our work had really just begun.

Helen pointing out what we just conquered

The Lower Muley Twist is called that because it twists and turns across sand and boulders and stones. It is a large wash that lies between steep canyon walls for the most part, and the water, over the years, has carved a beautiful and varied landscape. We walked through alcoves, deep like large bandshells, sometimes having to climb and drop off of huge boulders and piles of rock tossed by the water so long ago. Sometimes it was clear the rock had fallen, blocking the way, and we had to find the path the water took and navigate that. It was hard hiking, and it was exhausting. And we soon realized that the chances of making it all the way to Muley Tanks by the end of the day were slim to none. I began to get concerned about water – I drink a lot of it to stay hydrated and the thought of being without water in that hot and arid land was frightening.

Taking a break

Helen remembered from the previous time she’d hiked the trail, that there had been water before the tanks, and if we were lucky she would be able to find it and it would have water this time too. And bless her heart, she did find the water, so we filtered and filled all we could carry.

Now I want to make something clear here – when I say “tanks,” I don’t mean metal round tanks that are filled by a windmill or some kind of pump or even rainwater. I’m talking about holes in the ground where the water hasn’t completely dried up yet. These potholes of water have little and not-so-little tadpoles swimming around in them, so when you dip in your container, you have to be sure to leave the little critters behind. I used a Ziploc bag at one point to scoop the water, and I didn’t want it to look like I’d been shopping in the pet department at Walmart when I lifted it out of the water.  But these little water filters we carry are amazing, and the water was quickly filtered and replenished, and we continued on our way. The timing of this first water hole was fortunate; a very brief sprinkle came through, along with high winds and some lightning, and we were already stopped and under an outcropping of rock.

Because we had plenty of water, we were able to relax on our distance for the day, so after a few more hours we began looking for a place to set up camp. We found one of those alcoves, and except for the old dried mule manure, it was clean and dry. We set up camp – I in my tent and Helen on her sleeping pad, and we turned in early. It was still extremely hot, so sleeping in the tent exacerbated the heat, but I was not giving up the security. 

Yes, we had to crawl through that opening. We ended up having to take off our backpacks.

Before going to bed each night when I’m somewhere without cell service, I have agreed to send out a satellite signal using my SPOT Locator. My kids, Jesse, and Twila get these messages so they know I’m okay. Well, the one I sent the first night went through and everyone knew I was okay. The one I sent that second night did not go through. By 1 p.m. on the second day, my daughter Anna had called Jesse and asked if he’d heard from me. Suddenly, everyone realized that no one got a message, and it was assumed something had happened to me, and Jesse began to put in motion the process to send someone to help us.  I’ll come back to this situation a little later.

Second campsite

Of course I’m oblivious to this. Helen and I were back on the trail by 7:30 a.m. and it was immediately miserably hot. The canyon walls disappeared as we approached the Muley Tanks, and the wash became wider and less twisty. It simply became tedious. We plodded along, either in deep sand or picking our way over uneven rocks, with not much to look at. When we approached the Muley Tanks, Helen pointed out that the tanks were off the trail a little and there was no sign indicating where to turn to find them.   We used the GPS and the TOPO maps to locate the tanks, but not after some wandering around them until Helen spotted them from a high spot.

Storm clouds coming in

As we filtered and filled, the sun blazed down on us – there was no shade in which to work. Once again loaded down with water, we trudged on, taking advantage of the little shade we could find when we came upon it. We decided somewhere along the way that we would cut the hike short by two days and simply hike out to my car at the end of this second day. The third day would have been hiking for hours in the same type of conditions, and with no payoff of the Narrows because of the high water there, we decided it would be better to cut it short and regroup for the rest of the week.

A few miles from the turn to get to the car, Helen mentions that when we turned off the wash, the trail to the car was only about a mile long, but we would have to climb about 900 feet in elevation in that mile. I chose not to think about that until we got to that part of the hike. But before we had to deal with climbing that last wall of rock, we encountered horse flies, or something like that. They were huge and they bit and they really liked my legs. It was one of the most miserable encounters with insects I’ve ever had. No matter what we did – apply bug stuff, swat, move quickly – those damn sticky, biting flies would not leave me alone. Helen had on long pants, so they only bothered her arms, and they weren’t too terrible. It was my legs they like the best. At one point, Helen said I looked like Pig Pen in Charlie Brown the way they were swarming around me. I told her I didn’t think that was funny at all.

Looking down to where we'd come down the wash

When we reached the point to turn from the wash, I was relieved to escape the flies, but we had an unbelievable climb in front of us. We had been on the trail for 10 hours at that point, in 100 degree heat with direct sun beating down on us, and now we had to climb a frickin’ mountain. Neither one of us were sure we could make it, but we didn’t have a choice. We were almost out of water and the flies were driving us from behind, so climb we did. Slowly, carefully, and relentlessly we climbed. There were drop-offs and areas of scrambling, but we persisted. Those last few feet seemed impossible, but when we came up over the ridge and saw my car, it was the best feeling in the world.

Looking up - I doubted I could make it all the way up

View from the top

Meanwhile, while we were struggling through the day, Jesse was contacting the rangers and discussing how to find us in those acres of wilderness. By the time I had cell service, it was 9:00 p.m. and I sent a text that said, “Out of the backcountry. All ok.” I immediately got a text from Emilie saying how glad she was I was okay. I thought that was a little strange because Emilie doesn’t usually respond to my “OK” texts. Then I got one from Jesse that said he was glad we were okay and he’d “call off the rangers (not kidding).”

Once I’d talked to everyone and assured them I was okay and I had sent the message (apparently too much of the sky was blocked for the satellites), Helen and I decided to split a hotel room and stop to eat. After a number of slices of pizza and a number of ice-cold Diet Cokes, we found a room, showered and slept in refrigerated air.  I knew, before I fell asleep, I was not going to hike the next day.