We spent the night in Cedar City, Utah, and drove the 2.5 hour drive to Capitol Reef National Park in occasional snow showers and a little bit of rain. Despite the weather, the drive was beautiful, and though it was cold and very windy, we had lunch right at the entrance to Capitol Reef.
We were originally planning to spend the day visiting Arches National Park, and spend the night in a campground near Moab. But we decided that braving freezing temperatures and a chance of rain overnight were not the experience we were going for, and that we should stay in a hotel or airbnb instead. Also, based on our experience of Zion being swamped with too many visitors and information on the Arches website, we decided to go for the nearby but much less well known Capitol Reef. I feel like on both counts it was a good decision.
An old Mormon settlement called Fruita that was inhabited until the 1940s sits at the center of the Capitol Reef park, and before enjoying the park’s trails, we visited its school house for a brief moment. It was locked so we had to peak from the outside.
Not far from there are petroglyphs, carved more than a thousand years ago in the soft stone by native Americans that lived in the area. It was fascinating to see such detailed paintings from such a long time ago, preserved in the rock, and also sad that so little of the rich culture that produced them survives to this day.
At the end of our day we went on a hike in the park. I’ve gotten used to the canyons and terra cotta, and Capitol Reef definitely has plenty of those. But it also has this feel, which is hard to capture in pictures, of stepping into natures workshop. It is as if canyons. mountains and rivers are still being formed here, as if everything is still in flux. There are lots of jagged edges, deep canyons and overall a sense of being in a giant’s basement, full of partially completed work. We’re going to explore more of it tomorrow, and since the weather is supposed to improve, try to get our luck at Arches and the campground near Moab.
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