Today we make the incredibly short travel from Arches to Capitol Reef National Park. Capitol Reef National Park is the second largest national park in Utah (out of 5). We had never heard of this national park before planning this trip, so we didn’t really know what to expect! The drive was super easy and short (maybe 1.5 hours?). We were staying in the parks only campground, Fruita. Pulling into the national park felt like we were in a different world. We stopped at the visitor center for a map (this park is always free!).

The history of Capitol Reef National Park dates back hundreds of years. Native Americans first settled the area, then Mormons eventually moved in. The Fremont River flows through the area, providing water to the region. The Mormons took advantage of this, and began planting groves of trees. The main part of Capitol Reef National Park is the historic Fruita district. This area has all of the original old buildings- barn, homes, blacksmith shops, etc. There are THOUSANDS of trees in the orchards of Capitol Reef- cherries, apples, apricots, and tons more.

This was a stark difference from all of the other national parks we have visited. This park felt very…touristy. Almost fake. I mean, they had sprinkler systems set up to water the grass!! It was really odd for us. The cool thing was learning about the history of the area and seeing how they still use the original irrigation systems that were put in place when the orchards were planted. The park rangers maintain the orchards today.

Anyway, back to our trip. We parked at the campground- spaces were huge! Although, this campground felt more like a state park campground- people had things everywhere, kids were running all over- just very noisy. Not out favorite place to camp.

After setting up camp, we headed out to the park to do a hike. Scott had found today’s hike- Chimney Rock Trail. This was a 3.6 mile hike up the side of a cliff and through the desert. Not much shade- and we started our hike at 2 in the afternoon! Not very smart of us, but we carried plenty of water. The hike was pretty rough- the whole first part was just straight up this cliff. It was hot, and I was cranky! The only positive at the time was the wind which helped keep us cooler. At one point, we walked through an area that the wind was so strong we thought we would blow off the side of the cliff! We eventually got to more flat ground and enjoyed the hike through the rocks and desert area. The rocks and cliff faces in this area is really cool. Capitol Reef has what is called a Waterpocket Fold, which has to do with the way the plates move against each other and move the land around. The scenery around us was very cool!

 

We finished our hike, and headed back to the camper to eat a snack and sit in the shade a little. We changed our shoes, and decided to walk around and look at the historical aspects of the town of Fruita. There is a really large picnic area with these incredibly huge cottonwood trees. There are also deer that just hang around the campground and town! They could care less that we were around.

 

We walked to this bridge that crossed the Fremont River and ended up at the old schoolhouse. It was really cool as they had it set up exactly as it would have been when it was in use.

 

This is the part of our walk that ended poorly. Taking the bridge to the schoolhouse was not a part of the walk around the town, so we were kind of on our own at this point. We were walking on the main highway that goes to the park, not where we wanted to be! We almost turned around, but kept with the path we had put ourselves on. Eventually, we came back to the visitor center- still a mile from the campground. This mile was the worst mile we have walked our whole trip so far. There was no shade, nothing to look at, and the sun was HOT. The blacksmith shop was on this path, so at least we got to see that?

 

We got back to camper in one piece 🙂 Hopped in the car, and drove the scenic drive in the park. Not a very long drive, maybe 10 miles? The scenery was pretty, and the drive ends at a dirt road that can take you to the Capitol Gorge. Not a part of our original plan for the drive, but hey when in Rome? We drove this dirt and rock road and it took us right into the heart of the Gorge. It was incredible!

 

At the end of this road, you can park and walk further into the Gorge. We walked about a mile or so into the Gorge, and were able to see petroglyphs, the massive powers of the water that created the gorge, and these things called “The Tanks.” Essentially, the tanks are potholes in the rocks that hold water. Kind of cool- plus there was an arch that was created in the area! This was my favorite part of the day!

 

We walked back to the truck, headed back to the camper, made dinner and enjoyed a relaxing evening.

 

The next morning, we took a slow start to the day. This was the first national park that had any ranger activities, so we planned on going to the 10:00 ranger talk about geology. As a science teacher, Scott was extremely excited to hear about all the rock formations and history of the plates moving and how the waterpocket fold was created. I was mostly interested in hearing about all the black rocks we had seen everywhere in the park. We had thought these rocks were turned black after a fire. Turns out, when glaciers moved across this region, they deposited these black rocks, made of basalt, throughout the region! Very cool.

After the ranger talk, we got in the truck and headed out for our activity of the day. We would be taking dirt roads, fording rivers, and eventually getting into the Cathedral Valley. The drive was estimated to take drivers between 4-8 hours! We started on Hartnet Road (getting a little lost in this spot. It’s a bunch of land that can be used as BLM land, but also has a bunch of realtor signs. We were lost!) We saw a man with his horses in the area and asked him. He pointed us in the correct direction, and we were back on track! Our first difficulty was fording the Fremont River! Scott was really nervous about this part of the drive, but he did a fantastic job and we made it through the river just fine!

 

The next part of the drive would take us through a lot of desert, painted dunes, the South Desert overlook, and the Upper South Desert overlook. All of these were really beautiful and we enjoyed this part of the drive! It’s a very slow going drive though. If you plan on going here, it’s best to have 4WD and a high clearance vehicle.

 

Once we got to the Cathedral Valley, we saw exactly why it was named this way! So many rock formations that look like cathedrals scattered across the valley floor.

 

We took a couple of spur roads off the main road. They were all equally cool. The first was the Gypsum Sinkhole- literally this massive sinkhole right next to the cliffside!

 

We then drove to Glass Mountain. This is not really a mountain, more of a mound, but still very cool. There was no sign explaining how it got there, so later research taught us that Glass Mountain was made from selenite from long ago oceans that was buried, then pushed to the surface, creating the dome.

 

After Glass Mountain, we continued to the Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon. These are two huge freestanding “cathedral” like rock formations. The larger is Temple of the Sun, the smaller is the Temple of the Moon.

 

After seeing everything there was to see in the Cathedral Valley, we took Cathedral Valley road to exit this area of the park. This would take us through some rough driving (thank goodness Scott was driving and is an awesome driver!). We went through these areas of deep sand, huge rocks, and having to pass people who just parked right in the road! He did an awesome job!

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Finally out of the dirt road, we made it back to camp. We had dinner, did some reading, and had planned on going to a ranger talk that night about the stars. We walked to the location of the talk, but we were the only ones there! We waited for a while, but eventually assumed the talk had been cancelled so headed back to the camper for some well deserved sleep.

Tomorrow, we leave Capitol Reef National Park and head to the furthest west park we will be going to this trip: Great Basin National Park in Baker, Nevada. Another park we know essentially nothing about, so hoping we see a lot of cool things and enjoy Nevada!