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CAPITOL REEF +BABY

Exploring the American West with an 8 week old

By Tommy Nagle

March 5^th, 2020

In a previous story in this series I mentioned that most of the American national park names are fairly recognisable, even for the most uninformed of folks:

Yosemite. Zion. Joshua Tree. Jellystone*.

Though, unless you're a national parks buff, there are some you're less likely to have heard of, including the least visited of Utah's five national parks...

*Pick-a-nick basket, anyone?

Capitol Reef

"Capitol What?", you say? Well...

'CAPITOL'

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Navajo sandstone mound formations in the park resemble the domes that adorn Capitol buildings across the nation.

'REEF'

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Just as underwater, a large rock barrier, or a Reef, in this case The Waterpocket Fold, stretches through the park.

⇡ The prominent lines of the Waterpocket Fold ⇡

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'Capitol Reef' is a slightly confusing name, kind of edgy. Hipster, even.

Should they just have left it as "Wayne Wonderland", as they used to call it in the 1920s? I'll leave you to decide.

Party on.

⇡ The road into the park. The oasis of yellow trees springs up from nowhere. ⇡

The Fruita Campground has 71 sites, and is the only developed campsite in Capitol Reef. It has plenty of normal walk-in tent sites, along with room for RV's, and is well stocked with picnic benches, fire pits and toilets. But no showers, sorry. So you'll have to bathe in the river or just stay stinky.

From March until the end of October you can book six months in advance, the rest of the year it's first-come, first served. As such, because we were intentionally loose with our planning and didn't want to book too far in advance, just in case, on our first night in Capitol Reef we had to make do with an RV park out of town.

The following morning, we rose early and drove back into the park, pulling up at the campground to grab a spot as soon as someone left. Soon enough a line began to form behind us, so we were lucky to get a spot at all.

"What's so special about Fruita Campground?" I don't hear you cry. Well, first of all, it's bang in the middle of a beautiful orchard:

It really was special to wake up to the morning light in the quiet of the orchard, the surrounding red rock being slowly brought to life by the rising sun.

Wild deer roam warily around, nibbling at the ground.

The small settlement of Fruita was renamed so in 1902, due to the proliferation and increasing yield of the residents' orchards. It previously existed as 'Junction', due to it being at the junction of the Fremont River and Sulphur Creek.

The Gifford Homestead is one of the pioneer's original houses, and now features a shop which sells a selection of goods, from postcards to towels, jams to freshly baked fruit pies. We ate various pies for breakfast on multiple mornings, and can confirm that they are pretty tasty. Sorry I didn't take any pictures. I was too busy eating.

Cassidy Arch is a huge, um, arch, named for Paul Newman's character Kevin Marion 'Butch' Cassidy in 1969's Butch and Sundance.

CASSIDY ARCH HIKE | Easy | 7.5 miles round trip | 1150ft elevation change

Robert Redford was so mad that it wasn't named 'Sundance Arch', or even 'Butch and Sundance Arch', that he went ahead and founded his own film festival, just to spite the Capitol Reef staff. To this day he still doesn't let any films into his festival that were shot in Capitol Reef, mention Capitol Reef or even have the words Capitol or Reef in their title. This is totes true and not a joke that I made up which my Mum totally fell for.

The entrance to the Grand Wash Trail on the way to Cassidy Arch is relatively unassuming, but you're soon enclosed by sheer rock walls that rise up to 800ft high.

And then around a mile later, it opens out slightly, the path forking off and becoming Cassidy Arch Trail, 1.5 miles of almost 1000 feet of elevation change.

⇣ And there it is, in the distance. The thing that looks like a giant cave... ⇣

...slowly reveals itself as an arch that you can cross.

⇡ Looking south to Capitol Reef's dead-end Scenic Drive from behind Cassidy Arch ⇡

Erosion has left some of the canyon's stone walls looking like they're the bullet-hole-ridden, unwilling bystanders in some savage guerilla war.

The pock-marked walls do provide shelter for residents of all shapes and sizes.

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The wind and sand have begun their millennia-long construction of arches elsewhere in the park.

They've got to start small...

Capitol Reef also sports multiple sets of petroglyphs. Odd, cartoonish, 1000 year old carvings on flat rock faces made by the Fremont people, indigenous to the area.

Unfortunately, more recently some idiots have added their own inscriptions up there too. Crappy signatures, attempts at replicating the original carvings, and shit like "Mimi & John", enclosed in a heart. Screw you, Mimi & John, I hope you broke up.

We were up early anyway, and so decided to take a little drive as the sun hit the waterpocket fold.

Because we had other plans, we didn't delve into the various stops along the way, but of course you can. The NPS has a useful little guide that takes you through the various types of vegetation, rock formations and history of the road.

This short hike, which you can do from the campground, takes you along the banks of the Fremont, then up onto a ridge that gives a great view back down to Fruita.

FREMONT RIVER HIKE | Moderate | 2.5 miles round trip | 410ft elevation change

⇡ The yellow trees in the middle form the orchards and campground ⇡

There aren't any real shops nearby, but if you're craving a snack after your day's work, you can grab some tortilla chips and homemade salsa from the Gifford House.

One of the fantastic things about Capitol Reef is that it's designated as an "International Dark Sky Park", due to the park's commitment to reducing light pollution and educating visitors about the night sky.

Even with my fledgling skills as a night time photographer, it was pretty easy to capture the incredible field of stars. It would have been nice to have someone to accompany me, but understandably, wife and infant child weren't too keen to jump out of the van and potentially get eaten by a wild cougar.

CHIMNEY ROCK TRAIL | Moderate | 3.5 miles round trip | 793ft elevation change

⇡ Chimney Rock on the left, an eroded pillar of red sandstone ⇡

⇡ The view from behind Chimney Rock, looking down Utah State Route 24 ⇡

Down the road is the town of Torrey, about 8 miles away. The small group of cars way down there, to the right of Chimney Rock, is the car park and trailhead.

The recommended anticlockwise loop takes you along the top of Mummy Cliff, with great views over the surrounding area.

⇡ Whiskey Flat on the left, before the road wends its way into Fruita ⇡

And with that, our time in Capitol Reef was at a close.

Next up, Arches National Park, 150 miles to the east, through a landscape that felt weirdly desaturated compared to the reds and oranges of Capitol Reef.

Join us next time for the next installment of the +Baby Series, with me, your host, Tommy Nagle, Esq, where we'll visit Arches National Park, featuring all sorts of Arches. Big ones, small ones, brown ones, orange ones, and so on:

Arches +Baby

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And if you missed the previous story in this series, then you can find it here:

Grand Staircase-Escalante +Baby

PS: Thanks for reading! If you liked this, click the 'ENJOY' button (either at the top or the bottom of the page); it tells me I'm doing something right.