Utah - Day 24 - Capitol Reef National Park

Green River State Park, Green River

Sunday, 24 October 2021

Last night's campground at Torrey was a private one and very strange.  For instance, the only trash receptacles were located at the entrance, while the exit was on a separate street altogether.  The management was being very careful to avoid any contact with campers: they called down to me from a 2nd story porch to tell me where my site was and what the rules were.  First time that's happened.

I'd seen two of the campers + pickup trucks in the parking lot at the Anasazi Museum yesterday - I recognized them because the campers were almost identical, the pickups were almost identical, and both had New Mexico license plates.  Two couples (I saw them) traveling together separately.

today's drive

Capitol Reef National Park

You can see on the map that the park's boundary starts right after Torrey, but the official entrance was 11 miles from the campground.  The thin line you can see going down into the park was an 8-mile scenic drive.  But several miles before I got that far, I saw some amazing scenery.

just your basic roadside sight

Twin Rocks

Chimney Rock
(look at how it's balanced)

The Fluted Wall, part 1

The Wall, part 2

But the Fluted Wall is bigger than these 2 photos, so I took this video.  I don't know how to adjust the brightness on the videos so it's a bit dim in the beginning, but then the sunlight brightens it part way through.

And with the next photo, you'll be able to see that the Fluted Wall continued even farther.

That's The Castle on top.

One of the main reasons this park was established was to protect something called the Waterpocket Fold.  From the park's various handouts, I think I understand what that is, though it wasn't at all what I expected.

There are 19 layers of rock in this area, that began with white sandstone laid down 290 million years ago in the Permian Era, and ended 65 million years ago in the Cretaceous Era with something called Tarantula Mesa Sandstone.  Then around 50-70 million years ago, tectonic plate movements activated an ancient buried fault that lifted the rock layers on the fault's west side more than 7,000' above those on the east side.  But instead of splitting, the layers folded over the fault line.  ("Fold."  Get it?)  It's now called the Waterpocket Fold because the erosion that created the rock formations also created potholes - pockets - that collected rainwater and snowmelt.

The rock folding, with one side so much higher than the other, is called a monocline.  The fold here is the longest exposed monocline in North America - around 90 miles long.  The west side, which is what I saw first, is much higher than the east side.

Here's where the park's name came from:

Capitol

Reef

To me there's not much difference between the hills shown from the east (above) and those I took photos of from the west.  But to geologists, apparently there's a world of difference.

I drove only halfway down the scenic drive, mainly because it was a very narrow road that was hard for me to drive on - and frustrating because there weren't nearly as many places to pull off for photos as I wanted.  These are 3 I took of that section of the park.

Look at the color variations on the rock face.

This shows some of the many rock layers that were exposed.

This photo looks like it was painted by a
follower of the Hudson River school. 

Here's the thing: when I first started to see these rocks, my jaw dropped open and stayed that way for a long time.  These photos don't begin to convey how stunning this place is.  Compared to here, Zion and Bryce are just pretty scenery, and I'm really sorry I don't have the photographic skill to show the difference.  But if you ever come to southern Utah, don't overlook Capitol Reef National Park.

I couldn't get any photos of something they call "ribbon rock" where the colors show up in a wavy pattern.  The park says that shows prehistoric river flows.  The park also includes a long series of low water crossings that I'm pretty sure are connected to the feature they called "Grand Wash."  There was an unpaved road that led into that area and a sign: "Do Not Enter If Storm Threatening."  I'm guessing flash floods happen in that area, though the whole system looked bone dry when I was there.

We stopped in an official picnic area, where lots of other people were walking their dogs too.  We found massive amounts of deer droppings, and a large number of horseapples that had obviously fallen, unappreciated, from the tree they surrounded.

Back on the road

We continued our drive eastward, though we didn't actually leave the park boundaries for some miles.  We passed parking areas (full of cars) for Historic Fruita (remains of a small Mormon settlement from the late 1800s); petroglyphs from the Fremont Culture, that can be seen from boardwalks; Hickman Natural Bridge, where the parking lot was more than overflowing - a popular hiking area - the bridge itself is about 2 miles along the trail, is 133' long and 125' high but sits 300' above the Fremont River and is one of many natural bridges along those trails.  The Fremont River, by the way, had a surprising amount of water in it, considering the drought this area's been experiencing.

I didn't stop for those things.  Instead what I saw were the park's east side rocks.

Look pretty different from the west side, don't they?

These white rocks came right up to the road in places, as you can see, and reminded me of a ball of bread dough a giant had been kneading.  Very smooth.

All along the road I saw lots of yellow cottonwoods, brightening up what you can see was an overcast day.

I can't find information about these next things I saw, but I saw a lot of it.

This might be part of the Upper Blue Hills, though I can't
get a straight answer online.

As you could see in the previous photo, these hills look 
like a giant has been sand/gravel mining and left all
these mounds.  But they're hard rock, not sand.
Sandstone, maybe.

This seems to be Factory Butte, from what I can find online.
And it is sandstone.

There were many odd geological features out this way - in the Caineville-Hanksville area - and I can't find anybody to tell me what I saw.  There was an area of towers of dark pink and chocolate.  There was an area that looked like a bunch of Bundt cakes.  There were rock formations that reminded me of the corals I'd seen in Cozumel.  There were mountains that looked white with currant jelly drizzled over their tops.

There was an area called Swing Arm City, an OHV area that looked popular.

I saw lots of horsemen/Border Collie combos.

I passed the road to Goblin Valley State Park, famous for its "goblin-like hoodoos."  Hoodoos are what Bryce Canyon had in abundance.  I pulled this photo off the internet to give you an idea.

Then we crossed the Green River and went into the town of Green River, "The Waypoint to Wild," they say.  The town didn't look too wild - in fact, the local grocery store was closed at 3:00 on a Sunday afternoon.  But I guess they mean the natural surroundings. 

And then to the Green River State Park for the night.