"Waterpocket Fold National Park" obviously wasn't going anywhere, according to the focus groups, and so, I surmise, the National Park Service had to come up with something a bit sexier, more enticing, even for visitors to Utah. (Try ordering a
double of any adult drink in Utah...). So, yeah, maybe a
beach theme: "Capitol Reef." Yeah, sun and fun. Maybe a luau and tiki huts and surf boards and dancing girls. Let's get back together and do it again. Except during thunderstorms and flash floods....
Despite the misnomer thing, it's a pretty neat place, showcasing and protecting the Waterpocket Fold, a 90 mile geologic monocline that is its own micro environment, with a human history and pre-history to match. The monocline is an up-thrust staircase of hundreds of millions of years old sediments, now an eroded wonderland of peaks, domes, cliffs, towers, spires, and arches. We spent only a day there, driving on to beat an incoming winter storm. But we'll be back.
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| En route to Capitol Reef NP |
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| See, Waterpocket Fold; I wasn't making it up |
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Approaching Fruita, the 19th century Mormon settlement, known
for its extensive orchards; but on the wall above, more rock art |
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| Thus |
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| And thus |
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After doing the visitor center and film, we drove the scenic
road, veered off onto a scenic unpaved road, and then finally,
on foot, onto the scenic Capitol Gorge Trail... |
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| More rock art |
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| Thus |
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| A real slot canyon |
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| Definitely not summer; nor a beach |
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| More pictographs |
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And now we are climbing up a little side canyon to see some
of the "tanks," waterpockets that are characteristic of the area,
and which provide for much of the micro environment |
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| Thus |
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| And thus |
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| Walking |
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| And then driving back out |
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| Wait a second! Was that there when we drove in?! |
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| Neat place; we'll be back...with our surf boards |
