Friday, October 5, 2012 (Castle Rock Campground, Fremont Indian State Park, Utah)

We had a relaxing start to the day enjoying our coffee until we finally decided we should get our butts in gear...it was exercise day, so we suffered through that.  It’s good to get back into the routine though...every second day we bring out our weight/resistance training equipment.  We haven’t had much cardio exercise lately so we thought we might check out some of the trails later on this afternoon.  First of all, though, we have to drive into Richfield to fill up a few gas containers so we can go on another ride tomorrow. Unfortunately the solar panels can't keep up and we are having to run the generator more often. Because we are in a valley the sun doesn't rise until 9:30 and sets at about 5:50.

After breakfast, while I was showering, Steve took his camera and went for a walk around the campground taking some pictures...

This is one of the pull thru double-sites...

A hiking trail from the campground...we may have to check it out sometime...

It must have been around 11:00 when we were ready to head into Richfield.  Our first stop was at the Super Walmart to pick up a couple of things.  We also stopped at a Napa store so Steve could pick up some double-sided tape...and then filled up a couple of gas containers at the Maverik Station...$3.83/gallon...the best price in town.  After a drive down the main street, we turned around and headed back.

We stopped at one of the Points of Interest in the park...pictures of some rock art...

Unfortunately some idots have defaced the ancient art by scratching their names into the rock.

 
Then we continued down to the Visitor’s Centre.  Steve went in to pay for a couple of more nights (we have decided to leave Monday morning) while I put on my running shoes and made a visit to the restroom before we headed out on our hike.

We chose a trail that starts at the end of the parking lot...it starts with a point of  interest...A Pithouse...

Then the trail going up...

...with the start of some great scenery...

Then we came across a grainery reproduction done by some university students...

Interesting rock formations...

Up and up we go...a bit of a struggle as we are both experiencing shortness of breath; guess we are still not used to the high elevation yet...


...until we reach a plateau...whew...that's better!

The view to the right...

...and the view to the left...

All was going fine on our hike and other than some spots where heavy rain had eroded it, the trail was good.  That is...until we came to a junction...hmmm...should we go left or right?  Well, we thought we knew where we were based on the map we had (unfortunately, it wasn't a very detailed map)...so we went to the right.  And we walked up and up...for a very long ways expecting the trail to turn to the left and go back down.  But it didn't...instead, it kept going up and to the right, away from where we knew we should be heading.

We had gone quite a distance when we decided to turn around...we must have taken the wrong trail.  At least it was downhill on the way back.

We made it back to the trail junction and continued on the other trail.  It continued down and we knew we were headed in the right direction when we could finally see the highway in the distance...

We were now on an interpretive trail with numbered posts...we just didn't have the literature to tell us what we were looking at...

...and the final descent...now we just had to walk the road back to the Visitor's Centre where we had parked the truck.

We stopped in at the Visitor's Centre and asked about the trail we had just been on.  Apparently it was not a trail in the park...it was a National Forest trail and she thought it was 4 to 5 miles long.  Odd that the dotted trail was shown on their park brochure.  Well, we had had a much longer hike that we had planned...we were gone 2 hours...but it felt good once we were finished (like most exercise!).

On the way back into the campground, Steve took more pictures...the views change in the differing light...