Capitol Reef National Park

On our way to Thanksgiving in Provo, we stopped in Capitol Reef for a few days (pictured above--I'm standing on Cassidy Arch). It was so beautiful!! My dad met us there with my niece Evelyn and nephew Caleb; it was so fun to have them along with us. 

We bought this van with 8 miles on it in 2020 and we've since put about 85k miles on it. Faithful friend. 

The cottonwoods were brilliantly yellow and looked SO gorgeous against the rock (this is from the night we drove in during a rainstorm). 

And even more beautiful with blue skies after the rain cleared!

After going to the visitor center & checking out the pies for sale at the Gifford homestead, we hiked to Hickman Bridge. 

It was such a pretty hike and had incredible views for being so short!

We checked out the petroglyph panels, then headed into town for dinner (some yummy Mexican food) and then collapsed into bed--we were pretty exhausted after driving all night the previous night!

The next morning we woke up to a blanket of snow outside our hotel, but in the park it was about ten degrees warmer and so all of the washes along the scenic drive looked like this: 

We had planned to hike along the Capitol Gorge wash, but it was closed since the road was under about a foot of water. So we retraced our path and went to the Grand Wash to hike through it & take the spur to Cassidy Arch.

This was such a gorgeous hike and legitimately one of the most scenic ones I've ever done--higly recommend it! The colors were so intense after all the rain and snow that had soaked into the rock. 

And the end at the arch is SO cool--you can see Neil & Matthew standing on it in the photo below. (It's named for Butch Cassidy, who is rumored to have frequented these parts.)

On the other side of the arch, you can look out over the valley below--I think that's Juliet up on the cliff with the boys walking toward her. 

And here's the view from that point after Matty and I walked out onto the promontory. 

Then we hiked back up the Grand Wash...

Which was very muddy and very fun! The mud was either so smooth that it looked just like chocolate (we legit had to talk Juliet out of licking it after Evelyn dared her) or it was covered in this weird chocolately foam that the kids loved smacking with their trekking poles. Needless to say we were all absolutely coated in red mud after this hike. 

After a mile or so Neil ran back to the cars to grab cranberry bread, since it had become apparent that we were not going to turn around any time soon--we meandered a little further and then the kids wanted to climb for awhile. 

Walls beginning to narrow--this reminded me so much of Santa Elena Canyon. 

Eventually Neil & Dad turned around with Matty and Caleb to head back to the cars, and I continued on through the wash to the other end with Juliet, Isaac, Luke, Evelyn, and Nathan. (Our distance was just about equal to either end, so we gave all the kids the choice of deciding which way they wanted to go.) 

Later that afternoon we drove out to the Goosenecks, Panorama, and Sunset Points overlooks. 

Pretty darn spectacular. We watched the sun go down and light up the flanks of the Henry Mountains. 

The next day we checked out of our hotel in Torrey and headed out for a quick hike before driving to Provo. We hiked up the Cohab Canyon trail, which leads to a hanging canyon overlooking Fruita. This hike was SO SO cool. Look at that rock surrounding Nathan and Caleb!

Lots of teeny little slot canyons and we explored every single one!

Here's Isaac

And Juliet (we took this photo to send to her Outdoor Exploration teacher since she was missing an orienteering lecture) 

And Neil! 

Gosh this whole canyon was so gorgeous. So many fun places to explore and climb and try to wriggle through!

I wish we had been able to spend the whole day hiking there--there's a connector loop that I really would have loved to do if we'd had the time. 

Then it was back to the cars, scraping off as much mud as we could, and hopping in the car to head to Provo! The scenery changed to icy wind and snow-covered everything just a few miles out of the park--so interesting how it's this little temperate pocket. 

This is not the greatest photo, but we took it staring into the sun while the kids were all grabbing a snack. I was so glad my dad was able to join us. The last few years have been really hard with some things in our extended family and I have been so grateful that he has been able to join us on so many fun adventures. 

 

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah!!! On our first day, we had permits to hike Old Rag, so we got up bright and early to get to the trailhead in time to get good parking. This was SUCH a fun hike and our kids absolutely loved it. 



Lots of scrambling!! But it never felt exposed, which was nice. 

Blue marks to follow the trail!

And at the summit! It was such a gorgeous view (we were hoping for more fall colors, but such is life). 

Then we headed down towards the fire road rather than doing the scramble in the reverse. 

The kids thought this was boring, but I looooooved it! (And they picked up about 10000 acorns, which we made them drop, but they smuggled a few in their pockets to feed to the squirrels at our AirBnb.)

On our way back we stopped at this awesome little apple orchard that had tons of fun stuff like jam, peach cider, etc. They only took cash and so while we were ransacking our car for cash, the guy parked next to us handed me $25. He was SO nice--we kept telling him we had cash somewhere and we just had to find it, and he said "hey, let me do something nice today! Welcome to Virginia! I saw your Indiana plates and I loved my time living in the Midwest." 

So we bought a bunch of apples, some peach cider, and a jar of elderberry jelly. 

Then I asked the cashier if there was anywhere that had apple cider donuts, and she said a place about 15 minutes behind us, and that it was definitely worth turning around. 

And it was!! We maybe went a little crazy buying everything that looked amazing and fun to try (probably the biggest hits were the chocolate buckeyes and a LOT of jam). 

Then we went back to our AirBnB, which was probably my favorite rental we've ever stayed in--sooooo many deer and the kids had a great time watching them from the hot tub! (The other side of the house had a birdfeeder area that was packed with squirrels and the occasional groundhog, it was so fun to sit and watch them.)

The next morning Neil & I got up before the kids were awake and went for a pretty long adventure up at the Massanutten ski resort--we meant to go for a short run, haha, but then realized we could go to the top of the resort. It was one of the hardest workouts I've done in a long time! We didn't see any other runners and only saw one group of guys driving up in an ATV to mountain bike back down, and the driver was super impressed that we'd gotten up on foot--he told us we had gained over 1000 feet of elevation in about half a mile. 

So many deer!!! We were about two weeks before hunting season began. 

I took a few pictures trying to capture how steep the roads were. It doesn't work at all, hah!

They were *mostly* runnable on the way down, but there were still a few places where the grade was so steep that we had to walk over the loose gravel, and even then we were skidding!

The view from the top was pretty amazing though! We ran for a bit on the Massanutten Peak trail, which had a LOT of signs about bear activity. 

Hang-gliding launch!

When we got back to the AirBnB, the younger boys were awake and having a great time playing arcade games. We woke Juliet up (maybe Isaac too?) and headed back to Shenandoah. 

First stop: Bearfence Mountain! This was such a fun little hike, probably right around 2 miles roundtrip? Lots of scrambling stuff and we were annoyed at the guy who told us it was too dangerous and we should turn around (me, muttering under my breath: "Okay dude, is it a steeper drop than Angel's Landing?"). 

A little woodland gnome was waiting around the bend!

Then we spent most of the rest of the day driving through Skyline Drive and stopping at overlooks/short hikes that looked fun. 

And checking out the lodge! Which was very rustic and woodsmoky and then had a Starbucks at one end. 

I think this view is from Stony Man, which was another delightful little short hike. 

The next morning was our "waterfall day." We started out by hiking the Rose River Falls with the Dark Hollow Falls spur and followed the advice we'd read to do it clockwise so that we were hiking uphill with a fantastic view of the cascades (which you really cannot see if you go counterclockwise!). 

This was SUCH a pretty hike!

We hiked for probably a mile or mile and a half next to this stream which just kept falling over cascade after cascade, each one prettier than the last. 

Then we went back to Big Meadows and tried out some fried chicken, biscuits, and coleslaw (okay the boys had that, Juliet and I had hamburgers). I think it was everyone's first experience with fried chicken because...I don't like it. 

Sometime during the day Isaac and I found a book in the visitor's center that had a place where you could write up each trip to every park, stamp it with the passport stamp, and check off 4-5 things that are popular in the park. Isaac was then on a mission to get us to hike the last hike we hadn't done but...we didn't make it because everyone fell asleep on the way so Neil just kept driving (good call, we were all tired and cranky). As evidenced by Matthew just waking up and a large spot of drool on Juliet's sweatshirt thanks to Matty sleeping on her. 

We went to the northern visitor's center so that we could see the park film, which wasn't playing at the other visitor center. It was extremely anticlimactic, but the kids had fun checking out the gift shop while we were waiting for it to start. 

And to take us out, this picture--all five guys in this picture were SO proud of themselves! They had been planning this for two days since Matthew found the "Mathews Arm" notation on the map. Haha!