Red Canyon, Cassidy, and Rich Trails

Red Canyon is a hidden jewel.  Lost between Zion and Bryce National Parks, it is a place where tour buses stop at a couple of places for quick photo ops and then head on to one of these better known places.  

We have now taken two hikes in this canyon, and both have been spectacular.  Perhaps not as jaw dropping as looking into Bryce Canyon (we haven't seen Zion yet--that's on tomorrow's agenda), but a type of beauty where one can actually walk out into it and be alone with it.  And that's what we value most.  Today we ran into only two other hikers and two small groups of horse riders.  For the rest of the time it was just us and the canyons, the trees, and the loudly buzzing grasshoppers.

Our hike was along several well-marked trails.  A total of 7 miles with about 1100 foot elevation gain.  We hiked to two lookout points--one overlooking Red Canyon and the other overlooking Losee Canyon. Part of the hike was on the Cassidy Trail, named after the famous outlaw Butch Cassidy who also enjoyed hiking here. 

We hiked the middle part of this map, having done the bottom part our first day here.

A close-up of where we went.  We started at the YOU ARE HERE and went up, covering all of the trails up to the point where the Rich Trail stops.

At the Ledge Point we could see all of Red Canyon.  Amazing.

The next spectacular view was into Losee Canyon.  As the map indicates, there are trails through there.  We will be taking that trail before we leave here.  There aren't roads to this spot, though, only hiking trails.  You have to earn this view:

Tomorrow we head to Zion National Park.  We really like our campground, and our spot in the campground.  It is well maintained and close to everything.  We will probably stay here a couple of weeks and exhaust all of the hiking here, in Bryce Canyon, and some in Zion (it's a 90-mile drive there, so we may not do it all, but we'll do enough).

We are having to generate some excitement about seeing Bryce and Zion, however, because of the crowds there.  We aren't used to that.  We are hoping that by getting away from the parking lots we can find some places that have the peacefulness of Red Canyon.  We'll see.

Hike Report:  Red Canyon, Cassidy, and Rich Trails in the Dixie National Forest, UT

(Note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not always equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  I also use data from two different Garmin computer programs, which usually provide slightly different estimates (one Garmin uses Google Maps and the other uses barometric pressure to estimate elevation).  The figure I arrive at is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Also, usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)