Rocks, rocks and more rocks is what John keeps saying as we drive along the cliffs and canyons of Capitol Reef National Park. But don’t let his trivial description fool you. The views are magnificent!
We left Deer Creek Sunday morning and drove south to Richfield, UT about 70 miles from the park so that I could do laundry and stock up on groceries. Monday morning we left rather late and took our time driving to the Capitol Reef, even stopping to visit with a National Forest ranger about fishing and off-highway drives then stopping for lunch. Next to the hamburger joint was a store & guide service. John got to visiting with them and ended up booking a half day guided fishing trip for Thursday. We arrived at the park about 2 pm on a Monday afternoon and the campground was full! Usually this plan of arriving on a Monday or Tuesday works well. We heard at the visitor’s center that the campground surprisingly filled up before noon.
We were directed to a BLM camping area about 6 miles west of the park entrance. There were already 4 others camping there and when we came back that evening, it was almost full also. We drove back to the park visitor center after parking the RV to talk with the rangers about some hikes and then drove down the Scenic Road to the Capitol Gorge trailhead. We were just in awe of the massive cliffs and towering walls of red rock all along the roadway. Our hike was just short of two miles out and back in the canyon of Capitol Gorge. We saw Native American petroglyphs and late 1800’s graffiti on the smooth walls of the canyon.
According to the literature we got, this area was created by an environment that was once an ocean; it was then heaved upward and folded over instead of cracking; and then erosion did its thing to create canyons, cliffs, domes and bridges. The area got its name ‘Reef’ because it looks like an ocean reef and divides the land like a reef would.
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