2016 Road Trip - Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef is a bit odd compared to the other national parks of Utah. First you can quickly drive through it and miss much of park. Second the name is strange in that it is named after a capitol shaped dome and reef like ridges found in the park. It has nothing to do with a government center of an ocean state.

Though we only spent a half day in the park we got to see a variety of things. First we did a short hike to Hickman Natural Bridge. It was hot like the other parks and also very crowded. Still it was a nice quick hike to start off the park.

We next went to the historic town of Fruita which was established by Mormon settlers. Though no longer populated the fruit orchards planted by the settlers remain and we had fun picking apples from the trees.

The park's visitors center was small, but they had an entire building devoted to kids activities. Though we had a limited time in the park the girls were were able to complete all the activities to get their Junior Ranger badges.

Finally we did a short scenic drive that went deeper into the park. Though it was in fact scenic it didn't quite amaze us as much as the other parks. In fact the drive we did to Bryce Canyon after leaving Capitol Reef was perhaps more interesting. It included a high altitude drive through an aspen forest and harrowing ride on The Hogback which was ridge where both sides of the road dropped off as cliffs.