In Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, there’s a deep rock canyon that runs for miles in the backcountry, winding through soaring walls of sedimentary geologic formations in a roughly east-west direction,somewhat parallel to Utah Highway 24. Capitol Reef is just east of Torrey, a small town that toggles between agriculture and tourism. In Fall, at the end of tourist season, restaurants close, motels and other dial back their operations, and things quiet down in town. In Spring, the process reverses. In a previous job, I had the opportunity on several occasions to work in Torrey for a week in June, co-teaching a workshop course for new employees just prior to the ramp up for the summer tourism season. Another of the instructors, Tony, was also a runner, and one evening after teaching he and I decided to go for an adventure run in Spring Canyon.

We did some map scouting and found the spot where the downstream mouth of the canyon opens up into the main canyon that passes through the national park.The lower entrance into the canyon is hidden. It’s screened off by trees, brush, rock, and layers of sediment, deposited over millennia and then sliced through by the Fremont River, invisible to passers-by on the highway through the park. If I hadn’t seen it on a map, I wouldn’t have had any idea it existed. Armed with directions to the location, we drove to a small pull-out on the side of the highway,parked, walked back up the road a bit, and then waded across a shallow, wide place in Fremont River to where we scrambled up a steep mud bank, maybe six or so feet high, to reach the level of the main Spring Canyon floor. We bushwacked through something like a quarter mile of thick brush, pushing through sharp vegetation and thorns,low-hanging tree branches and leaves, and piles of woody debris on the ground.

But then something magical happened: The underbrush and trees ended, and the narrow canyon suddenly opened up in front of us, a cool, shaded, quiet sanctuary with a sandy bottom that was perfect for running. I wouldn’t call it a crack canyon, but it is fairly narrow in places.We ran for a few miles up-stream in the canyon, dodging around occasional puddles and muddy sections on the canyon floor. Mixed into the sandy surface, there were small- to medium-sized rocks made from materials that definitely didn’t belong in the canyon. Black pebbles that were clearly from a volcanic source were spread around, I assume having been washed down into the canyon from the mountains above to the west. There were also metamorphic stones; smooth, hard rocks in an array of colors, both muted and bright, none of which belonged in a sedimentary environment. The whole thing was stunningly beautiful.

At one point along the way, we noticed high on one of the rock walls a formation that looked something like a wave or the side profile of a partially-unrolled jelly roll, cut through to show the inward spiral of cake and filling. It was mind-boggling. How in the world did multicolored layers of rock end up in that inward-curling pattern,embedded in sand that later became solid rock? Trying to imagine what possible events or processes could have left that formation there was one of the highlights of the run.

Tony and I ran upstream until we knew we absolutely HAD to turn back to avoid running out of light before we reached the car again. We didn’t have any headlamps or flashlights with us, so we were kind of stuck with a hard time limit. We reluctantly turned around and retraced our steps, ending with another slog across the cold river and a short walk to the car from the south-western river bank. It had been one of the best runs of my life.

I’ve been back to that part of Spring Canyon a few times since my first time. I took my oldest three kids there one October when we went to Torrey for a quickie vacation during fall break at school. They complained about the river crossing and the bushwhacking, but when the canyon opened up, it was as magical for them as it had been for Tony and me. We ran and ran and ran. My boys did some “high-pointing,” running in arcs on the lower sloping sides of the rock walls and then back down onto the sandy canyon floor. It was like a giant playground for us. Beyond cool. On another, later visit, I took my now-husband Ryan there. Our relationship was new, and I wasn’t sure whether he would be as “into” the canyon as I was. I needn’t have worried; he was. It was one more amazing run in what had become one of my favorite places on Earth.

On another visit during yet another edition of the same workshop, I ran with some co-instructors and students into the middle part of the canyon,accessed from the Chimney Rock trail not far into the park on the Torrey side. While the run was fun and the scenery gorgeous, it wasn’t quite the same as the lower section I had come to love.

Several years after Ryan and I had our first Spring Canyon run together, I was back in Torrey to co-instruct at another session of the new employees workshop. This time, I didn’t have anyone to take with me to Spring Canyon. I also didn’t have time for running. I was on a mission during my off hours: I was sewing my wedding dress. My mom and I sewed both of my wedding dresses. The first, for a February wedding, was a slipper satin, long-sleeved classic design. The second, for my upcoming second wedding, was still an unknown with less than two weeks until my wedding day. Yikes!

When I packed my car for that June workshop week, I loaded a large folding table, piles of fabric, bridal magazines, sewing patterns, two sewing machines, assorted sewing supplies and accessories, and my dress mannequin. On my first night in my two-room motel suite, I paged through the magazines, cutting out pictures and making notes until I had settled on a design for my dress. My wedding was in just a little over a week, and I had no time to waste. I set up my sewing room and got to work on creating the dress.

But there was one problem. I realized soon after I started cutting out fabric for the skirt that I needed another layer of fabric for an underskirt. Because I hadn’t decided on a design before leaving home, I hadn’t realized I would need that. Hmmmm. I was in a very small town in are mote part of Utah. The closest fabric store (or store of any kind that sold fabric) was hours away, and I didn’t have time for that kind of driving. I needed to be sewing!

I paced around the room, trying to come up with options. I needed quite a few yards of sturdy white fabric. And then, in a “Sound-of-Music-Maria-play-clothes-esque” moment, it occurred to me that the fabric that the king-sized sheets on my motel bed were made of would be perfect! I went to the motel’s front desk and asked whether I could buy two of their king-sized flat sheets from them. I told them my story and explained my predicament. To my surprise and relief, they refused to sell the sheets to me but gave them to me as a gift instead. What a kind gesture! I was really taken aback and grateful.

Over the next few days, I cut out and sewed my dress. It wasn’t quite all the way done when I packed again to leave Torrey at the end of the week, but it was close enough that I knew my mom and I would be able to finish it in the week that would be left after I was back home in northern Utah. I wish I could say that following week was perfect, but it wasn’t. My drive home and the week that followed, leading up to Ryan’s and my wedding, were overshadowed by the tragic, unnecessary death of my three-year-old grandniece. But that’s a sad story for another time.

So Torrey and Capitol Reef hold a special place in my memories and in my heart. They’re connected with some of my favorite as well as saddest times with my friends, my children, my husband, and my inner life, and I was married with a bit of Torrey sewn into my wedding dress. Two years after the sheets episode, I returned to the little motel in Torrey, new triplet babies, nanny, and piles of baby supplies in tow. It was sweet staying with my new babies in the same place again where I had sewed my dress. I can’t wait until those triplets are old and big enough to take them to Capitol Reef to wade the Fremont River so I can show them the beauty of lower Spring Canyon. It’s pure magic!