April 7, 2025

This past week we headed to the Hickman  Bridge Trail for a short hike. I told Diane that it was less than 2 miles and easy walking. What I neglected to mention was that we needed to climb up the side of the mountain 416 feet. I have to admit it was grueling. We went until we thought what we saw was the Hickman bridge and turned around and headed back to the car. It was a 2.2 mile hike and we felt every bit of it. 





spotted this land marker on the trail. We have come across these over the years.

 
The trail up.

A snow squall came in when we were at the top. Glad I had my gloves along as it got cold.  

Our next quest was to hit the dirt trails in Capital Reef National Park about 40 miles from our campsite. There is a 20 mile road from the Park Admin Office which is out and back. There is one Arch (Cassidy Arch) along the route. The last 2.5 miles is dirt and just beautiful as you drive in the gorge between the rock faces of the mountains. 

I thought the road would change into a Jeep tail but it did not. Not to worry though, about a mile from the every end of the road was a dirt trail leading off to the right. And away we go. We pulled up the ON X offroad app and could see that eventually it would come out on HWY12 about 1.5 hours west of our campsite. 

The first section of the road was 8 miles long with plenty of challenging areas to overcome. We may have been on this section for 2 hours. The next section pushed my Jeep with 35 inch tires close to its max limit, just ask Diane. 

There were times that the tires were right at the edge of the road with the drop 500 to 1000 feet. There were so many washed out areas in the trail that it was difficult to figure out how to navigate. Once you commit there is no turning around. Just when you think you have made it through the rough area the mountain throws you another challenging area. 

There was two creeks to cross, mud holds to drive through and snow as we reached 8400 feet above sea level. We did see several deer up at the higher elevation. 

We left our campsite at 9 am and returned 4 pm so a full day of Jeep-en. I will post several videos on our facebook page.







 Today we headed back to the Hickman Bridge because we found out that we did not actually see the Hickman Bridge. Again we had to climb up the mountain side; getting too old for this. We ended up resting often as we made our way to the bridge. We both are glad we did go back as it was amazing to see the bridge and walk under it. It was 2.6 miles and we both took a nap when we got back to the RV. 




Bridge in the middle. Its 125 feet up and 135 feet wide.


Stone steps up the mountain. Knees took it.

 Tomorrow we pull up and head to Moab for two weeks. The second week we will be out with the Red Rock 4 Wheeler group on the trails for the Jeep Easter Safari event. Then it will be heading home to Wisconsin.

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