Thousand Lake Mountain

Tricia and I had a nice vacation over Labor Day this year. We went down to Thousand Lake Mountain (which is north-east of Loa, UT for those of you who don't know) for a few days. Our parents did us a huge favor and took the older kids the whole time, so we just had Reuben with us. He's still a little small to be leaving with anyone other than Tricia for any extended period of time...

Anyway, we took the trailer down and had a great few days. We didn't make any definite plans going down other than to relax. We dragged the trailer down a small-ish road (we won't go there again) and camped right on the north-west bank of Morrell Pond, one of the "thousand lakes" on the mountain. If you look really closely, you can see our trailer in the top right corner of the photo below.




We got down there Saturday afternoon and set up camp. We didn't do much of anything that day other than walk around and relax. I did get out my fishing gear in the evening for a couple of hours and had a fun time.

Sunday we got up early, cleaned up, and drove in to Loa for church. The building is an older tabernacle that has had a few additions over the years to add a gym, classrooms, and other administration rooms, but the chapel is still original. It was a lovely church, and the services were very nice, too.


After church, we drove into Capitol Reef National Park and had a picnic lunch in the old Fruita historic district. Then we went on a short hike to the Hickman natural bridge-back up through the sandstone formations away from the Fremont River, through a canyon with the bridge at the head. If you look really closely at the picture of me below, you can see Reuben hanging out in the baby pack that we borrowed from our neighbors for the trip.




After that, we drove back up the mountain from the east, on backroads that took us out into the Cathedral Valley portion of the Park, which probably doesn't get many visitors because it is so far out of the way. It was about 40 miles total on old, rutted dirt roads, but there was some great scenery on the way and towards the end once we were in the Cathedral Valley section. I wouldn't recommend that route to anyone unless they're in a 4-wheel drive vehicle with plenty of clearance. And you should probably let someone know where you are going...there was an abandoned car way out there that had broken down. I really hope the people got a ride somewhere, because they were at least 20 miles from any pavement, and we only saw two other cars the whole afternoon. These pictures are of the Temples of the Moon (foreground) and Sun (background) and then a shot of Cathedral Valley from a ridge on the way back up the mountain.




The temperature dropped about 30 degrees from the desert floor (it was 95 degrees at the visitor's center at Capitol Reef) up to where we were camped on the mountain (65 degrees when we pulled up to the trailer). That was a long day and we were pretty tired by the end.

Monday we stayed close to camp. We did take Reuben out and hike to a couple of other lakes in the area, but other than that we stayed at camp, played games, took naps, read books, etc... That was a good day. Tuesday we took a drive over to Fish Lake for lunch. That was a nice drive, and we cooled down a little bit with some rain during the middle of the day. I spent both evenings fishing on Morrell Pond again, and had a great time. If you look really close at the picture below, you can actually see a fish jumping out of the water (not on my fly). Tricia had pretty good timing. I caught most of my fish on Prince Nymphs and Renegades, for those of you who care.


All in all, it was a great, relaxing trip. We decided we need one of these every year, so we hope that our parents didn't get too fed up with the kids while we were gone.