Hickman Bridge Trail, Capitol Reef NP

After leaving Escalante we headed to Hanksville UT about 35 miles from Capitol Reef National Park.  Capitol Reef is a great park and is just a little bit less crowded than the other big parks of Bryce, Zion, Arches, and Canyonlands. 

This trip, we found the park to be less crowded and very pleasant so we were able to hike this cool trail; Hickman Bridge.  The trail is 2.4 miles long with an elevation gain of 733ft; this trail is listed as moderate.  The entire hike was beautiful and the “Hickman Bridge” is a 133’ long, 125’ long arch named after Joseph Hickman who was a local school administrator and Utah legislator.  He was instrumental in Capitol Reef becoming a national park.

After the hike, there is another area of the park called the Fruita Historic District that includes a schoolhouse, blacksmith shop and the Gifford House store.  This area was known for its residents near the mid to late 1800’s and their orchards of apples, peach, cherry, pear, plum, apricot and almond trees.  It has a history of pies! Each day pies are baked with local fruit and sold at Gifford House!  Our hike was rewarded with freshly baked small cherry and peach pies from original recipes!  Enjoy our video and as always, comments are always welcome!

Also, while in Hanksville, the area is known as a dark sky area; we ventured out to try night sky photography. 

Travel Update:

We are now in Moab, UT with the temperatures each day of between 105-109!  We spent a great day at Arches and took a  fabulous ATV Sunset Tour last night that was a ton of technical driving.  Stand by for that exciting video!  

Tomorrow we leave the heat of Moab and we are heading for Heber City, UT and will be there for 3 weeks!