Travelogue

The TeePee Saga

The ad that drew me inBefore leaving on this trip, this ad popped up on my FB page for a teepee glamping experience in Capitol Reef where we planned to go along our Utah trip. “Doesn’t that look so awesome?” I asked Herb. We do have this agreement on off-road trips that after 2 or 3 nights of camping, I get a nice hotel with hot shower and porcelain toilet, so he faked some enthusiasm and told me to book two nights so we could do the hike to Navajo Knobs in the park.

When the day had finally arrived, I called en route there to see if by any chance we could have an early check in, and was told that our teepee was ready whenever we arrived. However, they did suggest that we might might want to spend most of the day outside the teepee, because the swamp cooler (desert kludge of an air conditioner) had a hard time bringing the temperature down in the 90 degree temperature forecast for the next two days.

Our wonderful upgradePlus we learned that there wasn’t actually a bathroom inside the teepee, but rather one assigned just to our teepee about 30 feet away. At this point, the teepee seemed to have no advantages over sleeping in our 4 Runner.

Enthusiasm a little dampened, we forged on. Upon entering our luxury teepee, we became a bit concerned by the 2 dozen or so mouse traps spread throughout the teepee - no customers yet, but some evidence of mouse dropping on the bed. I very much did not want to get hantavirus during my expensive, luxury glamping.

I was now depressed. Instead of the luxury glamping experience I was so looking forward to, I had reserved two expensive nights in a windowless, bathroomless, mouse-ridden sweat lodge.

Now we could look at them from our deckHerb felt it was time to have a little discussion with the front desk, asking us if we could move to one of the cabins that also had the same great view only to be told they were all booked. What about those, Herb pointed to some very nice large cabins. They told us they were an upgrade and would cost more. To that, Herb suggested that it might be a nice gesture on their part to comp us for the difference because of the trauma his wife had been put through - actually I think Herb was more traumatized.

Happy Ending - we were moved to a beautiful two bedroom, two bathroom cabin, with a full kitchen and a large deck. Yeah Herb. He’s a much better negotiator than me.

That evening we walked across the street to the Rim Rock Restaurant where the food was okay, but the views of the red sandstone cliffs of Capitol Reef were excellent.

Navajo Knobs Hike

Approaching Navajo DomeDuring our two-night stay in Capitol Reef National Park (not in a teepee), we hiked the spectacular Navajo Knobs trail, a 10-mile, fairly strenuous trail along the Waterpocket Fold to the Navajo sandstone knobs, rising above the entire park.

The Waterpocket Fold is unique to Capitol Reef. When the earth’s crust was uplifting 65 million years ago creating many of the mountains and plateaus of the West, something different happened in this area. Rather than uplifting evenly, the crust in what is now Capitol Reef wrinkled into a 100-mile long huge fold, which tilted downwards to the east.

Along the Navajo Knobs TrailThis feature is what is known as a classic monocline, characterized by a step-like bend in the rock layers where the layers are tilted in one direction, in this case, to the east. The rock layers on the west side of the fold are 7,000 feet higher than the layers on the east side.

Erosion of the tilted rock layers continues today forming colorful cliffs, massive domes, soaring spires, stark monoliths, twisting canyons, and graceful arches.

Rim OverlookMost national parks have a distinctive feature that defines them - Yellowstone has its geysers, the Grand Canyon has its canyon, Yosemite has its granite cliffs, Sequoia has its giant trees, etc.

Well, Capitol Reef has something no other park has - a 100-mile huge wrinkle (or fold) in the earth’s crust, created when the earth’s crust was uplifted 65 million years ago.

The CastleIt's essentially a tilted layer of sedimentary rock that has been bent and folded over millions of years due to tectonic forces.

In geological lingo, it’s called a monocline, which is a step-like bend in the rock layers where the layers are tilted in one direction, in this case, to the east. The rock layers on the west side of the fold are 7,000 feet higher than the layers on the east side.

Getting closer to the KnobsSo today, we would walk the “wrinkle,” or at least 10 miles of it along the Navajo Knobs trail, a fairly strenuous trail along the Waterpocket Fold to the Navajo sandstone knobs, rising above the entire park.

The hike begins at the Hickman Bridge Trailhead, about two miles east of the Capitol Reef Visitor Center.

From the trailhead we proceeded east and soon began to climb some moderately steep switchbacks.

Atop the Navajo KnobsAt 0.3 miles, we came to the junction with the Hickman Bridge trail, but decided to skip that for now and continue straight towards the Navajo Knobs.

We passed the very impressive, 6,489-foot high Navajo Dome. While the predominant color of the waterpocket fold is red, some Navajo Sandstone formations, like this one, are a stark white, due to the lack of iron oxides which are found in the red rocks.

View of the Waterpocket Fold from atop the KnobsFrom the junction, we continued to ascend, stopping briefly at 0.9 miles at the Hickman Bridge Overlook, where we had a view of the natural bridge.

The trail then continued a steady climb along switchbacks and over slickrock until at 2.3 miles we came to the Rim Overlook, where we had stunning views of the Fruita orchards, the Visitor Center, and the surrounding white and red rock formations, including the massive Waterpocket Fold.

Along the benches on the way backThis is a common turn-around point for those that prefer a moderate 4.6-mile round trip as opposed to a strenuous 10-mile round trip.

I briefly thought about turning around, but then we forged on. The trail now became more challenging as it steadily and relentlessly climbed across rugged terrain and open slickrock, fortunately with plenty of rock cairns to mark our way across the slickrock.
At this point, one hiker (the first we had seen all day) passed us.

Along the way backThe trail follows the contours of the bench, sometimes bringing us quite close to the edge of the rim with steep drop-offs.
One especially beautiful view was looking down at “The Castle,” with its grey-green base with its grey-green base, signifying the presence of ferrous iron.

The final push up to the Navajo Knobs was steep and required some rock scrambling to reach the actual top of the Knobs. This was the most people we had seen all day.

Almost backThere were already a few people sitting at the top, so we waited our turn to scramble up for the incredible 360-degree views of the Waterpocket Fold and the Henry Mountains from atop the Knobs.

From there, we had to retrace our steps and hike the 5 miles back to the trailhead. It was a lot tougher than it should have been because we made the major hiking faux pas of not bringing sufficient water. In fact, we completely ran out with about a mile to go.

The first thing we did when we got back to the car was grab a cold drink out of the 4Runner’s refrigerator. It was pretty stupid of us not to have taken more water as it was quite a strenuous hike - 10 miles with 2,725 elevation gain over 6.5 hours on a pretty hot day.

We sure were glad we were going back to a nice air-conditioned cabin rather than a hot teepee.