Capital Reef NP, UT

#102 (November 10, 2022): Our week in Moab, UT, has instilled a life-long love of the state of Utah and the sandstone beauty and endless adventure that it possesses. Although we could easily stay here longer, we are excited for what else Utah has in store for us!

Collectively, the five national parks in Utah are known as the “Mighty 5.” We have thoroughly enjoyed the first two (Canyonlands and Arches National Parks), and now we are off to #3: Capitol Reef National Park.

As our route to our RV park along Utah Hwy 24 took us right through Capitol Reef, we listened to GuideAlong’s Mr. Dave, who gave us quite the geology lesson as he enthusiastically described the many layers of the rock cliffs, giving us a similar, but shorter acronym for Capitol Reef compared to Canyonlands: “Massive Cliffs We Know Now.” We easily identified the Mummy Cliffs of the Moenkope layer as we drove along, which looks like a cliff wall lined with petrified sandstone mummies. Quite bizarre! And we wondered why so many random out-of-place round black volcanic-like boulders littered the orange sandstone landscape. Well, Mr. Dave eventually answered that question, too. Scientists suggest that the black boulders were transported here by an ancient glacier which brought them from a distant volcano. Wow!

We parked our rig just a few minutes outside the national park at Sand Creek RV Park, before heading back into the park to enjoy the visitor center’s film and exhibits, drive the 8-mile Scenic Drive, and hike the short Gooseneck Trail before dark.

#103 (November 11, 2022): Before it became a national park, Mormon settlers created a small community called Fruita in the Capitol Reef area, where they cultivated fruit orchards using irrigation techniques. Although only some of their buildings still remain today, their fruit trees are still there! In fact, visitors are allowed to pick the fruit from the trees during the season. How cool is that?! Unfortunately for us, we are past season. Too bad. However, the park staff bakes a small batch of personal-sized 3-inch pies featuring fruits grown in their park as well as homemade cinnamon rolls each day as a tribute to its history. Seriously?! Yep! Evidently, these special treats sell out quickly every day. Not wanting to miss out, we arrived to the Gifford House at 9:00 am (opening) and were the first customers through the door! We purchased two cinnamon rolls and three tiny pies (strawberry rhubarb, apple, mixed berry) to divvy up and sample amongst the 6 of us. What a breakfast! It was a sweet, and de-li-cious way to start the day!

Next, we hiked the Hickman Bridge Trail to admire the 133-foot natural bridge. The hike also has great views of the Capitol Dome Rock, for which the park is named. Neil especially enjoyed the swiss-cheese-like tafoni rock walls that made climbing his beloved sandstone so natural and easy.

Afterward, we connected our RV and headed to the southwest corner of Utah to Zion National Park. Emily had a funny feeling along the drive that she was forgetting something important. Unfortunately, she realized why about 2 hours later when Chris pulled into the east entrance to the park and the park ranger handed them a map of a 3-hour detour to the south entrance. No!!!! Our RV was too tall to make it through the tunnel between the east entrance and Watchman Campground. The only way was to go down into Arizona and then back up and around to the south entrance. No!!!! Yep, she had written down this note in her notebook six months earlier when she made the reservation, but she didn’t remember it until it was too late. This major brain-block resulted in us having to fill our water tank at night and then back into our campsite (no pull-thru tonight) in the complete dark (Zion is a dark sky park, which means no streetlights). Thankfully, Chris was able to navigate to the site and park without any major hiccups. Thank you, Lord!