We spent Wednesday and Thursday in Capitol Reef National Park. It’s about 300 miles from my house but has almost identical elevation I’m about 4500′ and CRNP is about 5000′ (in fact, it might be even a bit higher). But on Wednesday when we arrived, it was 94°.
Good news is that next week I’m heading east with my fishing buddy Dan. His brother needs some help driving his truck from Virginia to Utah. So we’re flying to Tennessee, fishing the Smokies, then up to Virginia to fish the Rapidan and Moormans. We’re hunting out the southern and northern Appalachian strains of native brookies. Lets hope the weather is more cooperative.
Here are some photos of Capitol Reef:
that’s a symphony of images right there, wish I had your eye. Have fun on your Great Smokey Mountain Brook Trout Expedition, sounds like a blast! mike
Thanks for taking a break from your new toy long enough to drop by. We’re flying to Tennessee, then taking the Yeti R9H-97i the rest of the way – should be fun
. OK, no Yeti’s, just a regular old car. Well, hopefully a 4×4.
Great pictures Scott! Capital Reef is on my list of places to visit also.
Good luck with the weather for your trip. There has been a bunch of rain throughout this part of the country this year also. Right now we are looking at flash flood warnings and storms thru Tuesday!
Check Ian Rutter’s website (R&R Fly Fishing) before you leave. He always has the best report on conditions in the Smokies.
Have fun.
Thanks for stopping by Harry. Capitol Reef is a nice place. It’s small, but has a couple of nice scenic walks that are very easy, and then some more strenuous ones too. Two days there is plenty. It’s close to Bryce NP as well.
Thanks for the tip on the Rutter’s website – I scanned through it quickly and it looks helpful. Looks like rain for the day we’ll be there (the story of my fly-fishing-life this year).
Great photos Scott! Looks like a place I visited last month – Valley of Fire outside Las Vegas.
Good luck here in the Appalachians.
Chris
Chris, Yes, a lot like Valley of Fire. We used to visit there quite a bit (every couple of years) but haven’t been there for about 10 years. Capitol Reef has considerably taller cliffs and rock faces than VoF. Did you make it to Mouse’s Tank? Did you stay at the campground just around the corner from the huge rock panel with the petroglyphs?
I hope you’re ordering up some decent weather for our arrival tomorrow morning (although it looks a little wet to me).
Scott,
#1 Beautiful shots. Very nicely done. Those are the sorts of areas I wished I could have taken with me when I moved out of Utah.
#2 we are finally seeing the water recede here after record flooding. The rivers are shaping up for a quality season. I know that several colorado rivers are now getting into prime post runoff stonefly fishing. We may have an epic sort of river year here given the available water that still will be coming down from the mtns. We have reservoirs filled that haven’t had water levels like this in a decade. Things are definitely looking up
Hope you are seeing the same sort of trends and tight lines.
#1 Thanks! There are some pretty areas here, that’s for sure.
#2 I was gone Sun night-Friday night this past week, but I was told the weather was nice. So that’s good. But I haven’t had a chance to look at the rivers yet. On our way home we did go through Cheyenne, Laramie, etc., and it looked beautiful – probably the greenest I’ve ever seen the area.
Here’s to a good year!