Heading out from Panguitch, the first stop was the Red Canyon section of the Dixie National Forest. Red Canyon is aptly named—deep red sandstone spires topped with white Navajo sandstone and dolomitic limestone, Ponderosa and pinion pines, juniper, and a beautiful blue sky made for some excellent hiking along the trail system. Red Canyon abuts (nearly, anyway) the much more heavily visited Bryce Canyon NP but resembles it only superficially. The spires and cliffs are not as large and the valleys not as deep, but they are carved mainly by wind and not water, as is the case in Bryce. See for yourself, below.

After Red Canyon, we continued along the aptly-named Scenic Byway 12 to Escalante/Grand Staircase NM. We stopped here and there only to take in the views and have some lunch—no hiking this time, as we still had Capitol Reef as our objective for the afternoon. It’s a vast, magnificent area, and the images below do not do it justice.

Final stop of the day was Capitol Reef NP. Sadly (as we knew beforehand) the main road into Capitol Reef was closed due to road construction. Instead, we took a gorgeous hike in another part of the park up to Hickman Natural Bridge—not too long (a bit over a mile one way)—but steep-ish and very hot on this day. But well worth the effort, as I hope you can tell.

The day ended with an excellent meal at the Rim Rock Cafe and settling in at the Sunggle Inn in Loa, UT. As it turns out, the owner/clerk went to school at UNC Chapel Hill, so we had a lot to talk about. She was disappointed to learn the the Rathskeller was no longer there—which will likely not ring any bells of anyone reading this, but some of us still mourn its passing.