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Red Rocks - Southwest trip, 2012

CAPITOL REEF National Park, Utah

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CAPITOL REEF Capitol Reef National Park is one of the smaller parks - at least as far as one can explore the park by car. Just like the other areas we visited on this trip it is a region with spectacular if austere scenery. The park was created in 1937 to protect the "Waterpocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles". The panorama picture from the Park web page shows what is meant by that description. We unfortunately could only see some of these spectacular rock formations because we were driving and not flying over the area. While the park extends about 100 miles, the scenic drive (the only drive!) is only 10 miles long, additionally one drives across the upper portion of the park on the way from Natural Bridges to Torrey, Utah. On the Park home page is a map that makes it really clear that the vast majority of the park requires serious hiking, not meant for sissies like us. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the brief visit.


Capitol Reef				Navajo Dome
		As can be seen on the picture on the right - "natural bridges" can be found here as well. However, this is not called a bridge but "Saddle Arch" - no, I don't know why. The area had been used by various Indian tribes since at least 500 CE, as has been determined from various archeological finds and extensive petroglyphs on the rocks.
In the 19th century, mormon pioneers established farms and orchards here and called it "Fruita" Today the barn in the middle picture and the house behind me are part of the park attractions and in the farm house one can buy preserves and pies made from "original recipes". Not clear whose recipes we are talking about. The Fruita community existed until 1969, at least the Gifford family continued to live in the farmhouse until then. Their reminiscences can be found on the park web page and in the museum.
For us, a last look at the rocks with their varicolorored layers and then on to our next stop - the Sky Ridge Inn in Torrey, Utah

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