Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Hello there, and thanks so much for joining us here! You are probably wondering what this podcast is all about? In this podcast, we will talk about all sorts of outdoor adventures, but primarily, for now, we will focus on hiking and backpacking. No other outdoor adventure is so accessible to so many people! So please join us as we talk about how to hike/backpack and learn how to hike any length trail from your local neighborhood parks to those long trails such as the Appalachian and others worldwide! Remember... "in every walk with nature; one receives far more than he seeks... - John Muir " See you on the trail!
Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Escape the Crowds: Discovering the Tranquil Beauty of Capitol Reef and Zion National Parks
What if you could escape the bustling crowds of Zion and discover the tranquil beauty of Capitol Reef National Park? Join me, Craig the Natural Medic, as I recount my journey through these two extraordinary Utah parks. Compare the stark contrasts between the easy accessibility and the resulting crowds of Zion, where shuttle buses and permit lotteries are a necessity, and the serene, less-traveled paths of Capitol Reef. Dive into the unique history of Capitol Reef with me, from its inception as a national monument in the 1930s to the self-sufficient Mormon community that once thrived there. My reflections on these experiences highlight the diverse challenges and rewards of exploring these remarkable landscapes.
As I sit by a campfire near Capitol Reef, I’m in awe of the diversity and beauty of America's parks and protected lands. From national parks to BLM properties, our country is blessed with a stunning array of natural treasures. In this episode, I invite you to appreciate the variety of outdoor experiences our nation offers. Whether you're a seasoned explorer or planning your first adventure, my stories aim to inspire you to hit the trail and find your own connection with the great outdoors. Get ready to pack your bags and discover the joy awaiting you in these breathtaking landscapes.
Hey, what's up everybody. This is Craig the Natural Medic doing a special audio podcast live from Torrey, utah, as I record this, and I'm sitting out here by a fire looking at the stars and it's just a lovely place. It's just a lovely place, hey, but today I got to visit a park I have not been to before and that is called Capitol Reef National Park, and Capitol Reef National Park is one of the big five national parks in Utah, probably the most inaccessible and remote one out of the five, so the crowds are a little better. Did go to Zion Wednesday and did Angels Landing been wanting to do that for a long time and ever since I found out about it. And there's a world of difference between zion and capital reef and I wanted was thinking about that for just an audio podcast, which is what I'm doing right now, and that world of difference really is just the crowds. Like zion is a much more accessible park. It's not too terribly far off of interstate 15 from St George and you really can't drive in Zion, at least during the busy season. You can ride a shuttle bus, which is fine, but that kind of is a testament to the fact that there's a lot of people trying to drive in the park and that it really means the park is probably overloved, overcrowded. It probably explains why they do permits still, even after COVID's over with.
Speaker 1:For places like Angels Landing, if you want to go climb it or hike it however you want to phrase it you need a permit and you can't just get a permit. You have to do the permit lottery thing and that sometimes can be a challenge. I tried it over a month ago several months ago, whenever the window was open to do that, and I failed. Unfortunately, that week they were doing maintenance. It was my birthday week, april the 4th. Consequently, I wasn't even available because I took a new job then. But back to the original idea I tried to do the lottery for that and because they were doing maintenance the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th, it left me only one day in my potential trip to request that permit and, as you can guess, I didn't have much success. I didn't get one. But my friend over here in Utah had a permit and it just so happened that my week off from my new job I was able to come with them and their group and go up Angel's Landing. Come with them and their group and go up Angel's Landing and we successfully made the charge up the top and made it back down in one piece. It was certainly not your average run-of-the-mill hike, probably not the toughest hike I've ever done in my life, but it certainly ranks up there.
Speaker 1:Youtube video coming the next after I get through all my other content that I'm going to put out. I've got so much content right now Leftover from when I was in South Dakota and coming down through Kansas, oklahoma, and now I've got New Mexico footage and Utah footage and all that kind of stuff. I would very much like to get all that stuff out as soon as I can, but it's been delayed because of my job. Working six tens a week doesn't give you a whole lot of time, not including your commute time, to get the things done that you need to get done as far as editing content and posting it and that kind of stuff. But I digress.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I was just talking, thinking about, just even here in the state of utah, the differences between zion and capital reef. Capital reef is a lot more of a chill type vibe there, whereas zion is a lot more everybody's there because my guess is because it's a lot more accessible. Like I said, it's a good three hour plus drive to get to at least nearby capital reef from the saint george area and, yeah, that's still number one. So it's a little bit harder to get over here, distance-wise, and you're not going down the interstate, you're going through some US highways and some Utah State highways to get here. But also, I think the way that Zion was designed in the early 1900s, they didn't think about the automobile and how that was going to impact visitation and therefore we, the visitor, have to make accommodations to take a shuttle bus or whatever it takes to get to the sites that we want. Not really a big deal. We Americans like the freedom of our vehicles and so it's a little bit different to not be able to get in there, but it certainly does help with the congestion. And you know the rides that we took as a group, um, on the shuttle bus. We started off at the visitor center area, caught a shuttle bus and caught it to the grotto and then went up the trail to angels landing and came back out while I. There we are, but I think it adds to the grotto and then went up the trail to Angel's Landing and came back out. Voila, there we are, but I think it adds to the length of the day because you have to wait for a bus, get on the bus, ride the bus to the number of stops and get off where you want to where you need to get off. So it does add some time, but on the other hand, like I said, it does help with some of the congestion and keeping it, you know, to a manageable level in my opinion, and that's good. Whereas Capitol Reef still had some visitation I think significantly less, though, than a place like Zion, and again due to its accessibility and the fact that it's a different type of park in a lot of ways, and its journey to national park hood for lack of a better term, took a different route Became a national monument, capitol Reef. That is.
Speaker 1:In the 1930s there were still people living in the park in a community called either Fruta or Frutia, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. It's a Mormon community, which is very unique because they were able to, because of the abundant water that was around them. They were able to be self-sufficient for a long time, probably about 60 or so years. No one lives there now, but they didn't have any electricity. They didn't have any, even a telephone, and they were able to make these beautiful orchards which you can still see today in the park and during the appropriate times you can actually sample and or pick whatever you want from the different fruit trees that they have. Some are apples, some are apricots, peaches, cherries, among other things, and they're just really beautiful. And it's just an odd thing to see this kind of oasis of green in the middle of what we call a desert, because there's these high rock walls all around that area of the park and there's some historic homes. There's some different. There's these high rock walls all around that area of the park and there's some historic homes, there's some different deals in there to make it truly unique.
Speaker 1:And just observing the differences between the two parks was pretty fascinating to me in my brain. If you know anything about how my brain works, my brain is interesting, but in essence it was just. Even though they're in the same state and the same kind of roughly area they're both in southern Utah they're vastly different because of the way that they were set up, the way that they were protecting each other, the way this park was set up to protect the particular environments that it does In the case of Capitol Reef, it's set up to protect this 100-mile-long unique geological feature known as the Water Pocket Fold. That stretches over 100 feet linear distance north to south. So the park is very long and skinny from north to south. I don't believe. According to what the ranger said today at the ranger talk that we listened to on geology, there's no more than about six feet of width at any point on the park. That's like the maximum Six miles, six, six miles, excuse me, six miles, uh of width. Uh, that's east to west, um on the park, whereas the distance from the top of the park to the bottom of the park is over 100 miles. So it's definitely a different setup, for sure, and just scratched the surface barely today doing two different hikes.
Speaker 1:One of the hikes was in the Capitol Gorge area, which has a bunch of registers of settlers that came through, primarily Mormon settlers that came through. They kind of scratched their name on the side of the cliff, some rather eloquently, some not so, but it's interesting to see that. And prior to them, the visitors that were there, or people that were living there or in the area or visited the area, or are native americans. There were native americans that were the ancestors of today's hopi and zuni and piute tribes. They were called the fremont people. They left their mark on the canyon by leaving pictographs or, excuse me, petroglyphs. That are the difference being pictographs are made with some kind of a medium, like an animal fat or a plant material, like kind of an ink type thing, whereas petroglyphs are actually chipped out of the rock. So you see those intermixed with the pioneer signatures and some other things down there.
Speaker 1:I also got to go up to Cassidy Arch, which is named after the outlaw Butch Cassidy, who's from the area, his boyhood home actually. I passed on the way from St George to here, which is pretty interesting and it was pretty amazing. I actually stood on top of that thing and walked on it and it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. But going up there was definitely over the short mileage. It was only a little bit under two miles to get up to the top where the ridge excuse me, where the arch was, but it only took, you know, under two miles to get there. So the elevation change from the bottom of the wash to the arch itself was significant. But what a beautiful view though.
Speaker 1:But just with those two parks in mind just here in Utah.
Speaker 1:Think about the diversity of parks that we are lucky enough to have in this country, whether they be national parks or state parks, or we could even delve into national forests or BLM properties or whatever and when I say BLM, bureau of Land Management, just to be clear and there's just a wide diversity of landscapes and things that people want to protect for one reason or another that we have throughout our beautiful land of the United States of America, and I particularly feel like I'm pretty blessed that I can travel and see some of these places and I encourage you to get out there and see some of those places yourself.
Speaker 1:We have so many parks and forests and beautiful places in our nation and we should enjoy those, and I just wanted to share those thoughts with you while I'm sitting here by a campfire right outside of Capitol Reef National Park here in Utah. I do hope that you enjoy the podcast and that maybe it brought something special to you day, evening, afternoon, night, wherever you're listening to this and where, whatever you can, whatever time you're enjoying it. So I'll talk to you later. See you on the trail.
