The hike starts with a brief steep climb up from the Fremont River to the bench above. Here I am looking southeast down the river, the road is just visible snaking through the canyon, the river is to its left.

Hickman Bridge is at the top of a small wash which has several other small bridges and odd features.

One day this one will tower over the wash, for now it's just tall enough to get under without crawling (it's about 4 feet tall)

First view of the bridge, I bet most people don't spot it the first time they come up here.

A side path leads to the edge of the river canyon from where you can look northwest, the area in the V just to the left of the sunlit red rocks is part of the historic Fruita orchards near the visitor centre.

A feeder wash parallel to the bridge which is immediately to the left of the picture, I've now gone round the back of it from the first view of it.

Hickman Bridge - it's 130 feet across.

Right under the bridge is a rock turtle trying to crawl up the slope (hint, he has snow on his head and is facing left).

Under the arch.

Hickman Bridge from the downstream side.

Yours truly having a well deserved rest.

I followed the wash bottom down and wandered off into a side canyon.

Now then, which way did he go? Looks like he left some markers...

Aha, over there! Probably a Chukkar which are very common here.

Side Canyon

Back in the main wash.

The canyon walls have all sorts of patterns and weathering.

Back on the bench, a very nice two mile round trip hike.

I'm pretty sure that's Pectol's Pyramid in the middle of this picture. In the 1920s Ephraim Pectol and Joseph Hickman were early boosters of the area they called Wayne Wonderland. Both were elected to the Utah legislature and Pectol petitioned Franklin Roosevelt to create "Wayne Wonderland National Monument". In 1937 Capitol Reef National Monument was created but had no budget and no staff for quite some time.