Sep 02, 2017 — Rather than hiking the Frying Pan Trail or Grand Wash Trail as out-and-backs, I contrived a loop that combines these two popular hikes with Cassidy Arch and forms a loop. The one downside is that this loop requires roughtly 2.5 miles of hiking along the paved park road, but it's a small price to pay for seeing so much variety during this loop's duration. You coud start from the Cohab Canyon Trailhead, but I chose to begin from the Hickman Bridge Trailhead. From here I crossed the street and looked for a sign for the Frying Pan Trail. A well-traveled and cairned trail leads up into the Capitol Reef National Park slanted landscape of gorgeous sandstone. The Frying Pan Trail gains and loses elevation a couple of times as it navigates the sandstone wonderland and it eventually leads to the spur trail to Cassidy Arch. Later in the year we rappelled through Cassidy Arch Canyon, which you should check out if that's your thing. I enjoyed the arch for a bit before heading back along the spur trail and continuing down on the popular Cassidy Arch Trail. This led to the southern Grand Wash Trailhead, the head of the canyon.
I started down the Grand Wash Trail, which was a gorgeous, popular hike on a sandy trail. The towering walls made me feel quite small, and it was a vastly different experience than the first half of the hike, which took the high road through the desert terrain. While Grand Wash is non-technical, it's still gorgeous and quite pleasant. I reached the northern trailhead and followed the paved park road west back to my car at Hickman Bridge. If you can manage a shuttle or hitchhike, you can cut over two road walking miles off the hike.
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