Surprise! Capitol Reef National Park

We drove out of Bryce on State Road 63 and had to decide which way to go back to Grand Junction. To the left on 12-West would take us back to the Interstate via the route that we took getting to Zion. Been there, done that, let's try something else. We got about 100 feet on 22-North when Rodney said, "I don't like this. It doesn't feel right. Let's take something more scenic." I didn't tell him how much longer it was, I just said, "12-East goes to Hanksville and we know we can get from Hanksville to the Interstate because we saw those signs when we first went from Arches to Zion." Okay, that's the way we're going.

You'll remember from the first entry in this series that I had seen this t-shirt in the gift shop at Bryce. We had now been to 4 out of 5 of the parks on the shirt. Pretty cool. We'd never heard of Capitol Reef and couldn't imagine that it offered anything different than we'd already seen in the other four parks. (Surely we would've heard of it it had anything special going on.) But out of curiosity, I looked it up on the map. It was between Bryce and Canyonlands but seemed impossible to get to. It looked like it would take us more than 2 hours out of our way on the 5-hour drive home (now 6-hour drive since we added this scenic route).

So imagine our surprise when we saw this sign!!

Well, maybe we were driving through the park, but according to the map, we weren't going anywhere near the official entrance to the park.

Wrong again. Next stop: Visitor's Center. We picked up the NPS map/brochure of the park and knew we had found a hidden gem. Oh were we ever glad that we took the alternate "scenic route"! 

According to the National Park Service website, "Located in south-central Utah in the heart of red rock country, Capitol Reef National Park is a hidden treasure filled with cliffs, canyons, domes and bridges in the Waterpocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles."

As beautiful as the park was, the history was equally compelling. "The area of Capitol Reef has been a homeland to people for thousands of years. Archaic hunters and gatherers migrated through the canyons. Fremont Culture solidified around 500 CE, from food foraging groups, to farmers of corn, beans and squash. Petroglyphs etched in rock walls and painted pictographs remain as sacred remnants of the ancient Indians' saga. Explorers, Mormon pioneers and others arrived in the 1800s, settling in what is now the Fruita Rural Historic District. They planted and nurtured orchards of apples, pears, and peaches."

We missed the petroglyphs (guess we're heading back some day) but found the historical buildings and lush orchards fascinating. My favorite part of the whole heritage of the place: "Mormon pioneers planted the historic Fruita orchards beginning in the 1880s. The orchards are managed to preserve their historic character and are watered with an irrigation system essentially in original condition. Visitors can pick and eat fruit in the orchards in season and purchase fruit and nuts to take along."

There is a campground nestled in this canyon valley that was so tranquil and picturesque. Yet another reason to come back.

We drove the aptly named Scenic Drive, an 8-mile road (16 miles round trip) that goes past some great formations. The colors of the stone in this park were different from the other four.