Capitol Reef: Utah's quietest national park

Capitol Reef is the least known of Utah’s five national parks, squeezed between Bryce Canyon and Arches. You cross it on Highway 24, at the foot of red, grey and white cliffs, and you find something unexpected in the middle of the desert: orchards planted by Mormon pioneers, where you can still pick fruit. There are far fewer people than elsewhere.

History and origins

The park takes its name from two images. Capitol, for its white sandstone domes, which recall the dome of the Capitol. Reef, because this barrier of rock blocked the way for early settlers as a reef stops a ship.

That barrier is called the Waterpocket Fold. It is a giant fold in the Earth’s crust, nearly 160 km long, formed about 65 million years ago when the layers of rock were lifted and bent without breaking.

The Fremont people lived here from around 300 to 1300. They left petroglyphs, still visible along the road. In the 1880s, Mormon settlers founded the village of Fruita on the banks of the Fremont River and planted peach, apple, apricot and cherry trees. The site became a national monument in 1937, then a national park in 1971.

What to do there

• The Fremont petroglyphs 📷Fremont petroglyphs carved into a sandstone wall: along Highway 24, a boardwalk runs beside a wall carved about a thousand years ago. You can see human figures and bighorn sheep. You have to look carefully, and then you see them everywhere.
• The Highway 24 viewpoints 📷The cliffs of Capitol Reef and the road from a viewpoint: Panorama Point, Sunset Point and Goosenecks Overlook, a few minutes’ walk from the car.
• The Fruita orchards: in season, you walk into the orchards that are open for picking and eat the fruit on the spot, for free. To take some away, you weigh it and pay at a self-service station.
• The Gifford House: the old Fruita farmhouse sells home-made fruit pies, from mid-March to autumn. They have often all gone before noon.
• The Scenic Drive: a 13 km road that leaves Fruita and follows the fold south. It has just been rebuilt and is fine in an ordinary car.
• Hickman Bridge: a short hike to a natural sandstone bridge 40 metres wide.
• Cassidy Arch: a steeper climb to a spot above an arch. It is named after the outlaw Butch Cassidy, who is said to have hidden in the area.
• Capitol Gorge: an old pioneer route along the bottom of a canyon. Nineteenth-century travellers carved their names on the wall there, the Pioneer Register.
• Cathedral Valley: in the north, a remote district of great sandstone monoliths, reached only by a long track, in a high-clearance vehicle.

Stories and good to know

• The cliffs change colour with each layer 📷The red, grey and white cliffs of Capitol Reef: red, grey, white, ochre. Each band corresponds to a different era and environment: desert, sea or swamp.
• The park looks after about 1,900 fruit trees. The orchards are only open for picking when a sign says so.
• Capitol Reef requires neither reservations nor a shuttle, even in high season.
• The park is a designated International Dark Sky Park: the sky is very dark, far from any town.

Practical information for your road trip

• Pass: Highway 24, which crosses the park, is free. You only pay for the Scenic Drive. We entered with our America the Beautiful pass: it’s all explained in our guide to the national parks pass.
• Getting there: the park is about 2 hours 15 from Bryce Canyon by the most direct road, and 3 hours by Scenic Byway 12, which is far more beautiful. It is a little under 3 hours from Moab and about 4 hours from Monument Valley.
• From Monument Valley: Highway 95 crosses the desert and passes above Lake Powell at Hite. It is superb, but petrol stations are very few and far between: fill up beforehand.
• Services: there is no petrol station or restaurant in the park. Torrey, a quarter of an hour to the west, has everything you need.
• Where to stay: in Torrey. Inside the park, the Fruita campground sits among the orchards.
• Combine it with: it’s the natural stop between Bryce Canyon and Moab, or between Monument Valley and Bryce as we did it.

Our experience in Capitol Reef

We only drove through the park, one afternoon in May 2024, during our road trip 1, on a long day’s drive between Monument Valley and Bryce Canyon. We stopped at the petroglyphs and at a viewpoint on Highway 24. The park deserves more, and we’ll be back.

⏳ Our day-by-day journals are coming soon.