A Week of National Parks Nov 6-13 - Part 2

Saturday November 10th we rolled into Capitol Reef National Park.  We are starting to get our National Park Routine down.  We head to the visitor's centre, get a Junior Ranger booklet, ask Rangers about recommended hikes, look at the displays, learn about the park and maybe watch the introductory park video.  At Capitol Reef we were able to listen to a geologist talk about the park's incredible geology.  There have been some repeated lessons from the various parks we've visited this week and this is helping cement some new knowledge.  We all certainly understand more about geology than we did a week ago. We also learn that this part of the world, the Colorado plateau, hosts some remarkable geology.  The unique mix of heaves and lifts of the earth and then erosion from water and wind over millenia have created awe-inspiring vistas with unique geological features like spires, arches, hoodoos, bridges, and more.

We also learn that at Capitol Reef there is a history of ancient peoples who have left their mark, literally, in the park in the form of petroglyphs, as well as Mormon settlers from the 1800s.  The one room school house still stands and we spend two nights camping in what was once a fruit orchard for the settlers.  The kids love watching the herd of mule deer that meander through the orchard looking for the remnants of fallen chestnuts or fruit. 

We also, in Mormon country, feel like a small family of 5.  It has not been unusual to see families of 5,6 even 7 kids out and about.  Wow.

The nights are cold, but the days are filled with hikes throughout the park.  We do one long hike up through a slot canyon, again marveling at the size and grandeur of rock around us.

We also learn the difference between a naturally occuring bridge versus an arch in the stone.  We see our first "bridge" which is formed from free flowing water over 1000s of years, whereas an Arch is formed from water that seeps into the rock.

Hickman Bridge

Looking for (and finding) Geodes!

We set off after our second night camping in the park's orchard campground towards Moab.  The drive was spectacular, along scenic Byway 12 that took us through tiny towns in the high desert of Utah and along jaw dropping switchbacks.  The road wasn't fully paved until 1985 and it actually amazing feat of engineering that it ever was!  It was so vertigo inducing that there are no pictures of the drive - but believe me when I say it was impressive.

Today felt a bit like National Park overload.  We drove through the "Island in the Sky" district which is a great name for a vast area of desert of Canyonlands National Park and then Dead Horse Point State Park which provided a viewpoint of the Colorado river 2000ft below.  It was pretty spectacular but we were all getting tired of spectacular vistas (how quickly that happens) and ready for a bit of a slower pace and warmer weather.  With that in mind we rolled into Moab and checked into a hotel.

The hotel proved another important life lesson - you really only appreciate things in contrast to what you don't have.  After being hardy campers in freezing temperatures everyone swooned over the relative luxury of comfortable beds, hot showers and a breakfast buffet.  It was really fun to see the kids revel in the heated outdoor pool, Leo get reconnected with high speed wifi and me washing our only change of warm clothes (most of our clothes for our trip are for warmer climates...).  Funny how we all enjoyed different things at the hotel, but there was no question this was a nice stop and change of pace.  We also used this stop to catch up on some of the school work that wasn't happening spontaneously on the trip (i.e. we were well caught up on geology, history and physical education but less so on math sheets and writing).  It is interesting to see that the older two kids are both keen to make sure they are doing some formal "school work" and dig into their math work without complaints.  I would be lying however to say that we've totally figured out the right rhythm for getting all 3 kids working with the necessary attention, but we are getting there.

Moab is the gateway for one of my favorite national parks, Arches.  We spent a full day on a 7. 8 mile hike through "Devils Garden" that passed at least 8 arches.  It was a strenuous hike that pushed us all to different limits.  Some of the hike was along somewhat exposed edges, other parts along slickrock and for the littlest legs of all, the last mile was long. 

But what a great day and again a real sense of accomplishment.  The kids were tickled the next day when they went to turn in their junior ranger booklet and the ranger asked what hike they had done, and then was astonished when they told her the entire loop of the Devils Garden!

From Arches we left for the final big stop on what has felt like the grand tour of SW National Parks.  We made our way towards Mesa Verde, driving out of Utah, briefly through Colorado and into New Mexico.  A quick detour took us to see Newspaper Rock which is a phenomenal large sandstone rock panel with more than 300 petroglyphs attributed to the Ute and ancestral Puebloan groups.

 

After another cold night of camping in a deserted Colorado campground, with coyotes howling in the distance and clear crisp sky full of stars above us, we made our way to Mesa Verde National Park.  








With a delicious New Mexico style breakfast burrito in hand ($2.49 from a local drive-in joint) we were at the park for the 8:30 opening, and spent a packed day learning about the Ancient Puebloan peoples who inhabited this region for hundreds of years before leaving en masse in ~1200.  

We learned about the evolution from shallow pit houses to the towering cliff dwellings that the site is famous for.  What was particularly compelling was grappling with the size of the communities.  These were not just small cliff dwellings of a few families, but entire cities with buildings of 60-100 rooms built of stone into canyon walls.  At the time the region was populated with hundreds of thousands of people, more than live in the area today!  Absolutely phenomenal archaeological ruins.  These are just some snapshots with my iphone - definitely not doing the views justice.  Perhaps another post to come with some better photos.

What you cannot tell from this photo is that we are at the top of a mesa looking down into a canyon and those dwellings are built into the canyon wall!

As corny as it seems, it really did feel like you could hear the canyon walls reverberate with the echoes of long ago sounds of children laughing, women grinding corn, dogs barking; the sounds of a rich and vibrant community of people.  This stop feels like the transition from a week of immersing ourselves in the natural world to one where we start to interact with the more human story of this region.