Capitol Reef National Park

I visited Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, what an amazing experience that was!

We started at the visitor center, and then happened to find a ranger doing a talk that we joined.

I learned about the geology of the area. Capitol Reef’s defining geological feature is a wrinkle in Earth’s crust, called the Waterpocket fold. This wrinkle extends nearly 100 miles from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell. It created a monocline, or one-sided fold in otherwise horizontal rock layers.

The Mormons also lived at the park and had a settlement there. They planted several orchards and had a one room school-house as well as several homes.

 

I did three hikes and we drove on a dirt road to the Capitol Gorge Wash, that was a lot of fun and I took some video of that.

Once we arrived at the trail-head we walked up the wash, saw the petroglyphs and we hiked up to the water tanks. This is an area where rain-water collects naturally.

 

Next, we hiked to the natural bridge. We met some crazy people there. Four runners that were on a quest to run a 5K in seven national parks in one day. Capitol Reef was their fourth run of the day. They had seen the sun rise over the Grand Canyon, ran a 5K at Zion, then Bryce then Capitol Reef. We waved at them as they ran to the natural bridge. We took our time.

Our last hike of the day was to Chimney Rock. Our last, longest and highest elevation hike, but the view of Chimney Rock from above was amazing!

An 11 mile walk with about 1200 feet of elevation change. We were tired!

Before we got to Capitol Reef we drove scenic Hwy 12 in Utah to the park, right through the Henry Mountains. Did you know that this area was the last mapped area in the US, not until the 1940’s! It is largely unexplored except for miners and a few ranchers who still run cattle on the slopes. A large herd of free-range buffalo call the Henry Mountains home. The buffalo were introduced from Yellowstone National Park in 1941. It is the most remote area of the Continuous United States. Unfortunately, we did not see the buffalo.

 

 

Thank you Dave and Louisa for making this adventure possible!