Fishing at Fish Lake

The Mystic Hot Springs are truly a hidden gem in Utah. I convinced my boyfriend, after spending the weekend camping in Bryce National Park and mountain biking Thunder Mountain, that we needed to stop and soak on our way home to Park City. It really wasn’t that hard to convince him. I had already used Google Maps to figure out that it wasn’t that far out of the way. By stopping in Monroe and tak...

These set of roads are classified as 4x4 high clearance vehical roads. Not to mention this part of the park is remote and only about 10% of visitors access it. To get to Cathedral Valley, we were recommended to drive a “loop” by the park ranger, that entailed about 60 miles of high clearance dirt roads. You can pick up a map of this specific area at the ranger station. The start of the journey ...

Cathedral Valley is a scenic backcountry area in Capitol Reef National Park. It is a remote, stark desert, characterized by amazingly beautiful sandstone monoliths that some say resemble cathedrals. Many of the valleys structures have interesting, highly descriptive names: Temple of the Sun, Temple of the Moon, The Walls of Jericho, amongst others. The long dirt road out to Temple of the Sun al...

This is a point-to-point hike that either requires a shuttle or 3 mile walk along highway 24. The starting trailhead is the Chimney Rock Trailhead which has limited parking. The ending trailhead is the Capitol Reef National Park Visitors Center. We only had one car so I dropped everyone off at the Chimney Rock Trailhead and then parked the car at the visitors center and jogged to meet up with t...

From the trailhead, the trek starts off pretty step. You will reach a fork near the top of the plateau which starts the official loop. At the junction go left (counterclockwise). The trail offers wonderful views along the way. The loop will bring you on top of "chimney rock" for views over Hwy 24 as far as the eye can see. This is one of the best short hikes in Capitol Reef State Park that offe...

Now most of the pictures you see from Capitol Reef are from cathedral valley. But not many take the time to get above the most photographed area of the park. Off of Hartnet Road, at mile 17.6 you will find a small dirt parking lot for the trailhead (were talking middle of nowhere, so no pit toilet, no fancy sign).  The trail starts in the far left corner of the parking lot, and is not super wel...