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Southwest Adventure
We packed our tents, sleeping bags, hiking boots,…
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Utah Road Trip '07
Thanksgiving weekend we headed out to Utah for 5…
Capitol Reef National Park
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8 reviews for Capitol Reef National Park
this is a one of many great parks to visit while in Utah. it seems that this park does not get all the attention it deserves. the day my bf and i went there we didn't see many people.
we did a hike to the arch early in the morning and it was really nice. what we saw along the trail was really nice. and we were the only ones doing that hike. we tried the grand wash hike but it was too long and it was too hot.
the rangers were really helpful.
i would like to visit this park again and try to spend the whole day there.
One of my favorite Utah parks, and one of the least visited. Capitol Reef features some of the finest sandstone cliffs in Utah, excellent petroglyphs, old Uranium mines (the Oyler mineis located at the junction of Grand Wash and the scenic dirt road), and the fremont river.
This is a hiker's park. You'll see very little from the car. Most of the motor tourists are in and out of this place in half an hour. Good.
I like to avoid the grassy green mormon-settlement campground and the rangers. I drive east a little ways to Luna Mesa, then pull off the road and behind one of the hills and make my own camp. This is an area of dusty grey hills that really look like some sort of planetary surface. Climbing to the top of the dunes in the moonlight is fantastic.
There's a lot of interesting places to explore in this area, and many of them are outside the park or on it's fringes, accessed only by 4wD "roads" from outside the park. A good map is invaluable.
What a great spot to visit. It was so quiet in comparison to Bryce and Zion.
We camped in the park and it was great, nice and quiet. We had breakfast while watching deer browse on the grass surrounding the campground.
The rangers were very helpful recommending hikes and sites to see. We spent 2 days here, but could have spent a couple more. I guess we'll just have to go back!
The orchards and overall greenness of Fruita is nothing you'd expect to encounter after driving hundreds of miles through Utah's desert. Yet here it was, the perfect place to pitch a tent that would be shaded by fruit trees and, beyond those, red rock cliffs.
My family had a great time camping and hiking here, and we found it to be the perfect place to kick off our loop around southern Utah. Torrey, the closest town with food and accommodation, had a surprising selection of restaurants that made us glad we didn't pack too much food when we set out from Vegas (see my review for Cafe Diablo).
Another highlight of our time there was visiting the museum/store in Fruita where they sold jams, ice cream, scones, and freshly baked bread....all delicious things after a morning of hiking the hanging canyons.
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Like all national parks in Utah, Capital Reef earns 5 stars.
I have been visiting Capital Reef since I was at 12 years old and I have many fond memories. One year while walking through the well appointed camp ground I stumbled upon a ranger lecture. This was were I learned that the purple bentonite clay you see all over Utah is used as filler in Ice Cream. 15 years later I stumbled upon a group of astronomers viewing the night sky through probably 20 different telescopes. It was amazing, beautiful and educational!
Capital reef has a lot to offer from casual hikes to fresh fruit from the myriad of fruit trees (in season of course). It is free to pick and eat and you pay a paltry sum to take some home with you. You can view petroglyphs and take wonderful photos throughout the park. Outside the park and if you have 4 wheel drive you can take your own tours of the slot canyons that cover the countryside here.
Remember to pack lots of water as it gets hot in the summer. Flash floods can spring up at anytime as well and those slot canyons can become deadly in seconds.
The thrill and beauty is here!
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Mormon Eden. More of southern UT's hallucinogenic rock formations, a petroglyphic smattering, and then, the height of civilization: U-Pick heirloom fruit varieties -- apple, peach, cherry (Montmorency, et al), apricot. Picking and eating on-site during the designated harvest is free. A small fee is assessed for taking fruit with you. Come during harvest (mid-June through mid-October) or flowering (end of March to early May). Snowfall as early as September.
Genteel 71-site campground alongside the Fremont River has irrigated lawns popular with deer. Orchards flank the cottonwood-lined Scenic Drive. Fresh-brewed morning coffee and a baked pie or homemade icecream at the Historic Gifford House just down the street.
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It's worth a trip. Amazing vista points and loads of hikes of varying lengths and difficulties.
Best to go in the spring or fall as it is less hot then.
The Cassidy Arch Trail, Upper Muley Twist , Flying pan trail and Cathedral Valley are well worth visiting/hiking.
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Another one of Utah's majestic National Parks. The major feature of this park is the "Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long wrinkle in the earth's crust" (NPS website). Because of it's scale, this feature is hard to see from up close...but the place we spotted it from was as we were leaving on Hwy 12 going back up the mountains (southbound) towards Boulder. There are a couple of scenic overlooks.
We visited last November during the Thanksgiving holiday. This park, like the rest of southern Utah, is fairly deserted in the wintertime - but it's open and if you don't mind dressing for the weather I think it's a great time to visit. Lots of fresh air and no traffic! You might even get to play in the snow a little. We actually drove through on Hwy 24 in the dark on our way out to the Moab area and we could just tell it was going to be cool. A couple days later we were back. Since it was winter, we opted not to camp. There are several motels nearby in Torrey and some of them close for the winter. We stayed at the Wonderland which was very enjoyable. And open. But there are several camping options available in the park. Because we were traveling with two small children, we also opted to take the CD-guided driving tour. This is available at the visitors' center for rent or purchase and I highly recommend it if you have just one day to explore or you're just passing through - it hits all of the high points and you can always pause the CD if you want to jump out of the car to explore. Even if you are staying a few days it might be a nice way to cover all the bases. There are some short hikes suitable for the family with young kids (one of ours was the Goosenecks trail), and there are stops at the historic Mormon settlement and orchards, the ancient petroglyphs, and a variety of natural features. One thing we did not do that I wish we had was take the 1 1/4 mile hike to the Pioneer Register - we made the drive all the way to the end of the road here but didn't have time for the walking (trail starts at the dead end of Scenic Drive.)
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