2015-09-05 Coral Reef National Park

We got up early today as we had a pretty dense program. We drove from Bryce Canyon to Green-River (near Moab). Along the way we had the Coral Reef National Park and Gobiln State Park.

The wonderful drive through the mountains from Escalante via Boulder to Frutia was very refreshing. No more red rock, but just nice birch forests, wide views and calm driving.

Arrived at Fruita we went to the Tourist Information Center, as we did not know too much about the Coral Reef National Park. We had discovered that there was a off-road trail to the Cathedral Valley. It was about 100km (60mi) round-trip, which was quite a distance, but since it was mid day we thought we give it a go.

Once we found the right exit from the main road to the trail, we got surprised by a little stream. It was about 5m wide and about 30cm deep, with steep entry and exit. Since we have not been driving our Jeep off road yet, we thought it might me a good start. It turned out it was an easy path for our Jeep 🙂 After a few more rocks and bumps we crossed a few cars. to our surprise, these where “normal” cars full of people!! I wonder how they made it through the road and across the stream! but the people in these cars looked very tired!

The road turned out to be a masterpiece and the views at the stops where just gorgeous and overwhelming.  it was worth every inch of bumpy road. After 6h of driving through the rough road we finally came back to the main road to Green-River.