Entering Capitol Reef National Park near sunset, the red sandstone cliffs burn brightly in the evening light, brilliant against deep shadows and a fading sky. This is the land the Navajos called “land of the sleeping rainbow.”
Visitors coming from the east must cross the heart of the park on the way to Torrey, where most folks stay. The drive follows the Fremont River and usually takes longer than anticipated, because who can resist stopping to look at or photograph the views along the highway?
Even the view of cliffs from the motel will blow you away, if the wind doesn’t.
“It blows in Torrey and snows in Loa,” says a waitress at the Best Western Capitol Reef Resort. “But down in the park, it’s usually pretty nice.”
That’s an understatement.
“The colors are such as no pigments can portray them. So luminous are they that the light seems to flow or shine out of the rock rather than to be reflected from it,” said Clarence Dutton, a 19th Century geologist who was moved to poetry as he described the area in 1854.
Though its geological mysteries have been solved over the years, the park still inspires awe.
Capitol Reef, in south central Utah, is the park most visited by Utahans. But even at that, it draws only 750,000 visitors a year — way fewer than most national parks and about a million fewer than Garden of the Gods city park in Colorado Springs.
One of the park’s unique features is its “waterpocket fold,” a gigantic geological warping of the Earth’s crust about 65 million years ago.
This 100-mile-long fold, or reef, explains part of the park’s name. The “capitol” part comes from several rocks that resemble the domes of various capitol buildings.
Capitol Reef is a hiker’s heaven, with short, flat hikes for the novice and longer, steeper, rockier hikes for the experienced.
Trailheads are marked both on the major roadway (Utah Highway 24) and on Scenic Drive, a fee area ($4 per car, paid on the honor system).
Pick up a self-guided tour brochure at the entrance; it offers lots of geological information about what you’re seeing.
Be sure to take the side roads to Grand Wash and Capitol Gorge.
The Grand Wash road passes the entrance to the old Oyler Uranium Mine, which opened in 1904 to supply the uranium used in patent medicines (yes, really).
Signs point to such roadside sights as the Cassidy Arch (though this is not a good vantage point for photographs). And don’t be alarmed when you drive around the next bend and find a German man yodeling and a little girl screaming her lungs out.
It’s just Echo Point, where few can resist hearing their voices — in whatever contrived fashion — tossed back at them.
Spring and fall offer comfortable daytime hiking temperatures (60s and 70s) for such places as Grand Wash, an easy four-mile trail (round trip), but you don’t have to hike the whole thing to see how lovely it is. The bottom is rocky in some places, sandy in others, but usually flat, and flanked by sheer canyon walls that offer shade just when you think you’re overheating.
Take time to stop and sit on a loveseat-shaped rock near the trailhead and listen to the trill of a canyon wren before you leave.
Signs along the route will point out the Egyptian Temple (that doesn’t look like much until you’re coming back out, and then the resemblance is striking). Of course, such formations were named by people with good imaginations.
If you follow the road past the pavement and drive the last bit — to Capitol Gorge — you’ll find an interesting trail, about a mile long, that once was used as a road by early pioneers.
Along the walls of this wash are both old and new graffiti. The old represents the Pioneer Register, the “Kilroy was here” of the late 1800s and early 1900s. A few new additions mar the place, and the posted warning of a $100 fine for writing on the rocks doesn’t seem severe enough.
At the end of this mile, if you like, you can climb to The Tanks, natural water pockets on top of the cliffs created by that aforementioned waterfold.
Back on the main road, worthwhile stops include the Goosenecks overlook, a one-tenth-mile hike to an overlook that provides a bird’s-eye view of a winding river below; and the Hickman Bridge hike, two miles (round trip) with views of Capitol Dome and eventually Hickman Natural Bridge. You can walk right under it.
An easy one-third mile hike to Sunset Point pays off for photographers who show up at — you guessed it — sunset.
You also can pull off to see Chimney Rock and you can see the Castle right from the road by the Visitor’s Center.
Other pull-outs include a petroglyph site, complete with a convenient boardwalk raising visitors to a height where they can see the often-faint art. There’s sometimes a ranger on duty here to answer questions and, presumably, to prevent vandalism.
For the adventurous (and those with high-clearance four-wheel-drives) there is Cathedral Canyon, on the park’s far north end. It’s an all-day excursion, and if your vehicle isn’t suitable you can arrange a paid tour at Wild Hare Expeditions or one of the other local outfitters.
This is a sparsely settled area of Utah, and Torrey is tiny by anyone’s standards, but don’t despair of finding an excellent meal at the end of the day.
The biggest surprise in Torrey is not the views from the motel, however. It’s the outstanding cuisine at Cafe Diablo, a small restaurant on the edge of town. You won’t get a better meal in any major city. Hint: It serves excellent beef tenderloin and an awesome marinated duck breast on wild rice.
The meal, like the scenery, is to die for. What a way to end a perfect day.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
Capitol Reef National Park is located in south central Utah. From Salt Lake City, take Interstate Highway 15 south to Utah Highway 28. Then go south to Utah Highway 24. Follow 24 south to Torrey.
LODGING
There aren’t many choices. On the west end of Torrey, there’s the Best Western Capitol Reef Resort, 435-425-3761 or 888-610-9600; it’s right on the edge of the park, with great views. Several other choices include a Holiday Inn Express, 800-HOLIDAY or 435-425-3866, and a Days Inn, 888-425-3113.
DINING
Choices are somewhat limited. There is no food available in the park. There is a dining room at the Best Western Capitol Reef Resort, and there’s a Subway sandwich shop nearby. But the best bet by far is Cafe Diablo, which could vie with any big-city restaurant for the quality of food, presentation, ambience and service–but not at big-city prices. It’s very popular, so make reservations..
HISTORY
In the 1880s, the first white settlers, Mormon pioneers who followed the Fremont people, Ute and Paiute Indians, settled in the heart of what now is Capitol Reef National Park. They raised farm animals and planted fruit trees and named their town Fruita.
Remnants of the town remain, including the old schoolhouse, orchards that still produce fruit (and are open to free public harvesting), and a farmhouse/ museum, the Historic Gifford Homestead & Store.
On one edge of the park is a small stone residence, the Behunin family cabin, that housed 10 people — and is the size of most modern bathrooms.
INFORMATION
For information on the park itself, call 435-425-3791; www.nps.gov/care/. For dining and lodging information, or contacts for tours or activities such as horseback riding, call the Wayne County Travel Council at 800-858-7951.
