Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park surprised us because we saw a few green plants! Two major rivers meet at Capitol Reef, which allows for a bunch of orchards and pastures in the valley.

We stopped at the visitor center and listened to a geology talk which was super interesting. We learned that this Utah desert used to be a sea which created ripple rock with it’s tides, then a forested swamp (which is the green layer of rock) and then eventually a huge sand dune field. The sand dune field was larger than the Sahara and the sand came all the way from the eroded Appalachian mountains, which used to be taller than the Himalayas! The sand dunes eventually become the distinctive white Navajo Sandstone on top of everything else.After the talk, we hiked Grand Wash. This was probably our favorite hike in the park! The wash had carved a deep but narrow canyon into the surrounding cliffs, so we walked through the different rock layers (down to 200+ million years ago!).

We also got a glimpse of a bighorn sheep! We were given a heads up by some other hikers that had run across it on the trail. We probably looked at the surrounding cliffs for an hour before getting a 5 second glimpse. Worth it.

Beyond Grand Wash, we also hiked Cohab Canyon, Capitol Gorge, Hickman Bridge Nature Trail, and the Fremont River Walk. Andy doesn’t really understand people’s fascination with natural arches and bridges, but there was a pretty massive one on the nature trail (at the top of this post).

The river walk is nice, easy, and shows off some beautiful fall cottonwoods by the river. It starts right by the museum, where we helped ourselves to mixed-berry pie, coffee, and a nap. Oh yeah. Along Capitol Gorge trail, there’s a pioneer register. This used to be the main pass through Capitol Reef so pioneers would write their names and the date down in case their relatives came looking for them. Some of them were competitive and wrote theirs way up on the cliff, or with bullet holes (impressive aim). It’s pretty faint, but you can still read a lot of the names and dates today.

We decided to slow down a bit one day and spent the afternoon picnicking and just relaxing by the river and orchards. The trees in the area were dropping a serious amount of leaves and it was the perfect temperature outside. We didn’t think we’d actually get a fall on this trip, but looks like we were wrong! We totally get why those Mormon pioneers decided to settle here after crossing the Utah and Colorado deserts.

Highlights of Capitol Reef National Park

• Grand Wash trail
• Fremont museum pie and orchard relaxing
• Capitol Reef ranger geology talk

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