Capitol Reef National Park

Hurricane and the National Parks we visited while there marked our western-most location. We left Hurricane on Friday June 16 and headed north up I-15 and east through more beautiful scenery to the tiny town of Torrey, UT and Wonderland RV Park. We passed through miles of desolate ranch land, beautiful rock formations and very little by way of services and population. Traffic was non-existent on this much less traveled byway. On arrival at Wonderland, we checked in, parked our RV rig and rode in Ay and Ems RV to begin our exploration of Capitol Reef National Park, just a few short miles from Torrey. Once again, nature as sculptor and architect went all out creating a spectacle of color and texture. This park also contained some ancient petroglyphs.

Wonderland RV park was nice - clean and efficient. Sites were well maintained but pretty close together. Roads and pads were gravel but level. Restrooms were clean.

On leaving Torrey on Saturday, we once again drove through Capitol Reef and ventured onto the Scenic drive with both RVs. This was a bit daring as we were not certain where we could turn our big rigs around to go back to the main road - but it worked out. We drove most of the scenic drive and did a three-point turn-around at one of the narrow pulloffs. It was well worth the gamble as the scenery down this road was wonderful. Continue reading below ...

 This is part of the waterpocket fold - a towering rock wall that blocked progress of early settlers. This gave the park the "Reef" portion of its name.

The scenic road was narrow - but wide enough for 2 RVs to pass; slowly.

These next two photos are of some of the petroglyphs and pictographs carved into the rock wall. This wall was several feet straight up. The carvings were high off the ground. They are a little faint, so look carefully in the rock.

This next photo is of the "capitol dome" - the feature that gave the park part of its name: Capitol Reef.

 After visiting the petroglyph part of the park, it was time to bid farewell to our friends Ay and Em as they were starting their trip back home in Colorado. Em and I stopped at a few more overlooks to enjoy more of Capitol Reef, but at lunch time where we pulled off the road, there at the turnout were Ay and Em - so we joined them for lunch and said good bye again; knowing that we'd see them next week when we stop by their home for a visit. These rock features were prominent at the pull off we used for our lunch break.