Utah Road Trip Part 3

 

Driving into Capitol Reef National Park was an incredible experience.  The towering red rock cliffs tower above you, and transport you into a new world.  We admired the scenery as we drove into the Park and got set up at our campsite we had for two nights in the Fruita Campground.

Capitol Reef is a place full of history, interesting geology, and stunning surprises around every rock.  The area is dominated by the 100 mile long geological feature called the Waterpocket Fold.  This incredible formation is a stretch of rock layers in the Earth's crust that was uplifted, folded, and then subjected to massive water erosion that scoured the terrain.  Evolutionary geologists (and the US Park Service) will try to tell you it took millions upon millions of years for the sediment layers to be deposited.  The Park Service even tries to tell visitors that the rock layers folded but were not broken.  When was the last time you saw a sedimentary rock bend and not be broken?  How about 100 miles of hundreds of rock layers?  It certainly takes more faith to believe that wild story than that of Genesis Flood account.  Massive sediment deposition is all across the American Southwest.  The mountains being raised out of the flood waters caused the still soft layers to bend and massive amounts of water sheeting off the continent scoured the landscape clean.

Like a lot of places in Utah, Capitol Reef was first settled by Mormon pioneers, in the 1880s.  The Fruita District, as it is called now, was the main area of settlement.  The settlers planted orchards, gardens, raised livestock, and carved a simple yet satisfying existence out of the desert oasis along the Fremont River.

We set up our camp in Fruita and then went to go check out one of the apple orchards first.  We were worried most of the apples would be picked already, but that worry was misplaced.  There were plenty to go around.  

While Emily, Amber, and I filled bags Addie had fun scrounging apples from the ground.  

After finishing up loading up on apples we still had some time before evening, so we decided to drive the scenic road through the Northern part of the park.

When we got to the end of the pavement we decided to drive down the Capitol Gorge Road and see if we could find parking.  After the seemingly long drive and the beautiful scenery we reached the trailhead and did get lucky with a parking spot.

Capitol Gorge used to be the only easily traveled path through the Waterpocket Fold, until the 1860s when UT route 24 was constructed.  Mormon pioneers used this route heavily to travel through the area, and plenty of them left lots of evidence on the canyon walls.  You can also still see metal poles hammered into the canyon walls that were used to hold telephone wires in the early 20th century.

By the time we hiked back out of Capitol Gorge, we were hungry and tired.  We headed back to camp and made a taco dinner.  But the real treat was our pie from the Gifford House.  We all ended up getting the last mixed berry pies that they were selling.  We enjoyed the treat and then settled in for the evening to prepare for the next day which would be our full day at Capitol Reef.

(Post Pie Selfie)