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Adventures Around Torrey Utah Given our experience to the Boulder Mountain top, we decided to do a little more planning for our next trips in the area. |
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Coleman-Donkey Road
Our last trip to the area in early Spring, we tried to go up Coleman-Donkey Reservoir Road, a 4x4 forest road into the foothills near our property. We wanted to see if we could look down on our property. In the spring the road was still covered with snow. This time of year (October), the road was nice and dry.
Soon we came upon a flock of turkeys enjoying the meadow. Watch the turkeys. The map indicated that the road went through, but we weren't convinced and given our experience on Boulder Mountain we turned around before dark. Again, we later learned that the road no longer loops back to the main road. We were surprised how much land is above our property. Although we could get a general feel for the area from landmarks in the valley, we need to spend more time exploring. Next time we need to take the GPS and mark the map so we have a better idea of our location in relation to our property.
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Our next adventure took us to the historic area of Fruita within Capitol Reef National Park. During our last Fall visit, we really enjoyed picking and eating the apples. We'd hoped to get out earlier in the season, but we got bogged down with work and didn't take the time. In addition to fruit picking, we also stopped for some photography. We enjoyed photographing the Fruita Schoolhouse against the red cliffs. We missed most of the peaches and pears, but we got lots of apples. At the Fruita orchards, the park service provides ladders for use of pickers. Anyone can take a handful, but we left a generous donation for the amount we picked that day. We just appreciate getting fresh fruit picked right off the trees. As the evening approached the deer arrived to enjoy the meadow and pick some fruit too.
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One afternoon, we decided to explore the bluffs just south of Torrey. The forest road meandered north through the rocks and hills behind the bluffs. The road turned west and began to climb the north side of the bluff. Eventually we came out on top for a beautiful view. The photo below looks east from the top of the bluff toward Torrey.
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We enjoyed trying to figure out where various landmarks were located in the distance. The Henry Mountains are in the distance (left side) in the photo below.
The photo below looks south across Rabbit Valley toward Boulder Mountain. The red arrow (below left) shows the RV park. The red arrow (below right) shows the general area of our property, although it's a little to the right (west). |
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The red arrow below shows the road leading up to our property. The yellow arrow shows the area were our house will be built in the valley further back.
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Three Creek Area Our property is in an area known as Three Creeks. We're on the west side of the development. Most of the properties are from 8 to 40 acres. We could tell they'd been working on the roads on the east side, so we took a quick trip up the mountain to check the progress on the road. When we reached the end of the gravel road, we took a short hike down the mountain and discovered a great view looking down on our property. The photo below shows our property in the foreground and a look north toward Thousand Lakes Mountain. The red bluffs are where we took the photos on our earlier trip (above). You can see the road leading into our valley. If you look closely, you can see that we've added a house using Photoshop. It will be fun to compare this photo with the real house when it's actually built.
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We really enjoy our campground. From our front window you can see our property up the mountain in the distance. One of the other many things we really love about this small town is the weekly farmer's market and the local restaurants. |
Each Saturday afternoon at 4PM, an organic farmer from Caineville and a few other locals set up a farmer's market in Torrey, on the grass outside the Robber's Roost Books. The fresh fruits and vegetables are wonderful. They also have a tray of hot cinnamon rolls, other home made breads, and organic meats for sale. Every market day, the crowd arrives early and anxiously await the arrival of fresh produce. These foodstuffs were so good that we only traveled to the grocery store once during our entire stay in the area!    |
Torrey also has several wonderful, unique restaurants with lots of variety. For example, Cafe Diablo is known for their "high end" southwest cuisine (Five star) and Brink's Burgers is an old-fashioned burger joint - - definitely not a chain concession. There's something for everyone!
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Go to Lamb & Johnson Menu
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Well prepared with our forest service map, water, and camera, we headed up the mountain. The Aspens were golden and the weather was perfect. We stopped many times to orient ourselves and check the map. We passed the turn offs to Coleman Lake and Donkey Reservoir. We also passed Bob's Hole, a well-known fishing lake. 
We enjoyed our fresh fruit. We made a great homemade apple pie. And the peaches we found were small, they were tasty. 
Torrey Overlook
For a little closer look, see the photo on the left. You can also see a higher road in the photo above the arrows. This leads to some other properties. 
After the great views from the bluff, we decided to continue on the back road along the bluff. Our 1985 forest service map indicated that it was a 4x4 road, however the road seemed very narrow. When we got to the other end near Bicknell we realized that it was an ATV road... that's the reason it was so narrow. Next time we need to refer to a newer forest service map!
Life in Torrey
