Hopkins 4K for Cancer

July 14, 2003

"Utah On My Mind"
Day 44


Glen Canyon NP, UT to Capitol Reef NP, UT



Leaving from Glen Canyon National Park ended up being quite an ordeal. We had some vicious winds and rain the night before so we needed to get up early to see if anything had blown away. In addition to getting up early, we lost about an hour of sleep the night before searching in vain for lost articles of clothing, group gear, helmets, etc. Needless to say we were pretty sluggish in the morning. After an inventory of all of our gear, we decided that we hadn’t really lost too much, just a sock or two here and there. So we took off for a 90 mile day to Capitol Reef National Park. Pat and I left as early as we could to beat the Utah heat and try and have some free time in the park. Lunch was in a pretty small town and Babak got food donated at a small restaurant and we finally got some hot food. Of course there was an ice cream shop across the street and we spent a good hour reading the newspapers from the last couple days over milkshakes.



We got ready to leave and with one step out the door we realized that we had spent too long at lunch and that it was well over 100 degrees outside. Deciding that this wasn’t suitable riding weather, we went back to the restaurant and took a nap on the front steps. After a couple hours of rest we woke up to find everyone gone and the weather to be just as brutal. We didn’t have much choice but to shove off because we weren’t sure where everyone was so we slowly rode back into the rolling miles of nothing that is Utah. We eventually caught “Team Photog” (Drew, Sam, VJ, Sumeet, John & Matt) and made it into Capitol Reef National Park battered from the long hot ride but just before we reached the campsite we found a path that led to a natural waterfall. The waterfall was just a short hike from the road and we spent about an hour lying around cooling off and relaxing in the water before we rode into the campground. It’s a good thing that we were only about 4 miles away because our legs felt like Jello for the rest of the ride. Too tired to explore the National Park, everyone rolled into camp and ate dinner without much hurrah. After everything was unloaded from the truck we found out that we were in the wrong campsite so we had to repack everything and move about 300 yards down the road and set up camp again. By this point it was getting dark and everyone decided it was time to go to bed and try and save some energy for the big climbs in Dixie National Forest on the way to Escalante, UT the next day. I fell asleep on a picnic table under a pavilion and slept quite nicely, ready to tackle another long, hot day in the Beehive State.



Rich Carmona