Capitol Reef National Park
On our trip out to Capitol Reef, we took Utah’s Scenic Byway 12, which has been designated an all-american road for its one of a kind features which qualify as a destination “unto themselves”. 
This really was an amazing road with all the wonderful features it passed through. We traveled through the Dixie National Forest and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and passed by Kodachrome Basin State Park and Boulder Mountain. It was well worth the trip, even considering we had to travel “The Hogback”, a ridge with steep dropoffs on both sides (quote from the scenic guide book).
Capitol Reef is a small but surprisingly cool park. In the middle of the desert, you have fruit orchards?! We picked a few apples but gave most of them to the horses. This park, also has old schoolhouses, petroglyphs, waterfalls (when its raining), hikes to large domes and hikes along dried riverbeds. Can you ask for anymore…well Keith would probably ask for a glacier.
Capitol Reef is known for its very unusual “Waterpocket Fold” formation.
The waterpocket fold is a huge wrinkle in the earth’s crust extending for about 100 miles. There is not another feature like this in the US, maybe not even in the world. Many of the roads in Capitol Reef are dirt and mostly made for off-roading. Since this area just had the worst rain in about 65 years, we didn’t venture on too many of the backroads….just a couple. Some of the coolest hiking we did is along these riverbeds called washes. The riverbed is only flowing when there in rain in the area. Since a huge storm just passed the area, there were so many cool rocks in the wash. We saw old ancient coral, petrified wood, lava rocks and so many more. 
But probably the best part of the park was in the morning when we were leaving, there were HUGE waterfalls cascading off of the cliffs. With all the rain they’ve had recently, there is no place else for the water to go, so it just washed right off the cliffs. It was really neat. These same cliffs the day before we completely dry!
This really was an amazing road with all the wonderful features it passed through. We traveled through the Dixie National Forest and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and passed by Kodachrome Basin State Park and Boulder Mountain. It was well worth the trip, even considering we had to travel “The Hogback”, a ridge with steep dropoffs on both sides (quote from the scenic guide book).Capitol Reef is a small but surprisingly cool park. In the middle of the desert, you have fruit orchards?! We picked a few apples but gave most of them to the horses. This park, also has old schoolhouses, petroglyphs, waterfalls (when its raining), hikes to large domes and hikes along dried riverbeds. Can you ask for anymore…well Keith would probably ask for a glacier.
Capitol Reef is known for its very unusual “Waterpocket Fold” formation.
The waterpocket fold is a huge wrinkle in the earth’s crust extending for about 100 miles. There is not another feature like this in the US, maybe not even in the world. Many of the roads in Capitol Reef are dirt and mostly made for off-roading. Since this area just had the worst rain in about 65 years, we didn’t venture on too many of the backroads….just a couple. Some of the coolest hiking we did is along these riverbeds called washes. The riverbed is only flowing when there in rain in the area. Since a huge storm just passed the area, there were so many cool rocks in the wash. We saw old ancient coral, petrified wood, lava rocks and so many more. 
But probably the best part of the park was in the morning when we were leaving, there were HUGE waterfalls cascading off of the cliffs. With all the rain they’ve had recently, there is no place else for the water to go, so it just washed right off the cliffs. It was really neat. These same cliffs the day before we completely dry!
posted by Baran/Narrow Family | 9:35 PM
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