Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org
Here is the end of the post. I must be having premonitions of death!
If you have time for only one hike, we think that a good bet is Chimney
Rock/Spring Canyon. This can be a very long hike, and the entire Spring Canyon
trek can take a few days. But you can tailor your walking to your time
limitations. Traveling west from Torrey on Utah 24, you come to the Chimney
Rock trail head on your left, a few miles into the national park but before the
visitors’ center. There is a parking lot where the trail begins. You head up a
slope and continue on it until you reach the top, overlooking the chimney rock,
which, as the name implies, is a freestanding rock formation that looks like a
primitive chimney. From the top, there is a good panoramic view of Capitol Reef
and Boulder Mountain. Most people continue the hike to make a loop back to the
starting point, but a better option is to turn off the loop part way down the
hill and head toward Spring Canyon. You will most likely be alone from here on;
if you want a long hike, it is possible to follow the canyon all the way to the
Fremont River on Highway 24, although if you do this, it is wise to have
someone waiting for you with a car at the road. We just go as far into the
canyon as we like. There are breathtaking cliffs, many side canyons, amazing
desert varnish, Swiss cheese holes in the rocks, water (sometimes) from
springs, trees, bushes, flowers, deep sand, petrified wood, and ravens sailing
through the wind currents. There is something both supremely serene and
foreboding here. The quiet envelops you, as if you were the only person on
earth. But the helter-skelter pattern of fallen boulders, the ominous cracks in
the rocks, the odd angles of some of the cliff walls, the softness of the
sandstone, all tell us that the earth was made in chaos and will continue to be
randomly shaken by cataclysms indifferent to human beings. Karen says that this
canyon makes her think of the earth when it was young. Young and rambunctious.
It is a place we always hate to leave. Go there if you can.
And if you can’t, listen to the Shaker hymn. Think of the most peaceful
and beautiful place in which you have been. Some day when you are too old to
drive and too infirm to hike, a special person will take you there. You will
lie down and look up at the bluest sky you have ever seen, high above the
cliffs of rust and pink, and brown. And you will be glad that you lived.
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