Thousand Lakes RV Park, Torrey, Utah
As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. ~ Proverbs 26:11
If Zion National Park is majestic, and Bryce is magical, we’ve decided that Capital Reef’s one-word adjective should be multi-hued. (Blaine felt we should try to stick with the “m”-word theme) It’s truly incredible how many colors can be found in the rocks around here! Today will show some of that, but I can already tell you that tomorrow should bring even more!
However, that being said, once I looked over the pictures, I noticed that our phone cameras don’t pick up the colors like our God-created eyes do. Which is too bad, because I really wanted you to be able to see the shades of deep rust, Sedona red, magenta, pink, meadow, pine and slate green, plum, goldenrod, tan, beige, white, gray, black, etc. And without those color schemes, it will be difficult to imagine why we’d choose to call this place ‘multi-hued’. You’ll just have to trust us. It is a most colorful place!
Maybe you’re wondering, as I did, how the place got its name. The NPS website tells us that early settlers noted that the white domes of Navajo Sandstone resemble the dome of the Capitol building in Washington, DC. Prospectors visiting the area (many with nautical backgrounds) referred to the Waterpocket Fold, an 87-mile long ridge in the earth’s crust, as a reef, since it was a formidable barrier to transportation.
Our campground is only 6-miles from the entrance to 378 square mile Capital Reef National Park. As we drove in today, we stopped first at the Goosenecks Overlook. Beautiful, easy access view!
Further in, we came to the Fruita Historic District. This is what NPS has to say about this very small community, that became ‘historic’ because of the orchards planted here:
Modern settlement came late to south-central Utah. The Capitol Reef area wasn’t charted by explorers until 1872, although people have lived in this region for thousands of years. In the last half of that decade, Latter Day Saints (Mormon) settlers moved into the high plateau lands west of Capitol Reef and established communities based on short-season farming and grazing. They then looked to the east, along the corridor of water snaking through the soaring cliffs and domes of the Waterpocket Fold – the Fremont River.
The origin of the little community at the junction of the Fremont River and Sulphur Creek is obscure. The first resident may have been an 1879 squatter by the name of Franklin Young, but the first landholder of record was Nels Johnson. Others soon followed, and the community that sprang up became known as Junction. Mail was delivered to a central Fremont Cottonwood tree, known as the “Mail Tree,” which still stands in the picnic area today.
The Fremont River was the key to life; without irrigation, farming would have been impossible. Unlike some of the other small settlements that grew up further downriver – Aldrich, Caineville, Blue Valley – Junction was usually spared the more extreme devastation caused downriver by frequent flooding. The orchards of her residents prospered and before the turn of the century Junction was known as “the Eden of Wayne County.” In 1902, the name of the little settlement was changed to Fruita.
The settlement never incorporated. Local authority – such as it was – was vested in the Mormon Presiding Elder. The population never exceeded ten families.
Supposedly, the orchards include approximately 3,000 trees, are still maintained by the Park Service and produce cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, pears, apples, plums, mulberries, quinces, almonds, pecans, and walnuts. All of which can be harvested (at the appropriate times) by you, the taxpayer. There wasn’t anything in season while we were here. Plus, they don’t seem to be maintained very well, from our limited exposure to tree farming. . .
We stopped at the Gifford House because we heard about their scrumptious cinnamon rolls and pies, and were pleasantly surprised to find a small museum inside as well. Very small. It wasn’t even conducive to picture-taking. But at least it was something! And I snagged just a couple of pictures where the glare wasn’t too bad.
Next stop – the Capital Gorge for a 2-mile easy walk. One of the most interesting aspects of this trail, was the insertion of cameras in a few of the canyon walls. People from the 1800s wrote on the walls, then some early 1900s, and you know, once others do it, human nature makes it easy to follow suit. So now there are cameras and stern warnings and VERY stiff penalties – $2,000 fine and/or 2 years in prison! Wonder if they’ve ever imposed those penalties on anyone?
So, as you’d imagine, the gorge trail was easy-peasy, but then we decided to explore the .2-mile Tanks spur trail. Nothing warned you that it was .2 miles straight up! But just look at the beautifully creative patterns in the rocks up here!
At least going back down was easy. 😊
More driving on the Scenic Road through the Park, with the thought that we’d hike some more at Cassidy Arch. We were shocked by the number of cars parked here! Since we couldn’t turn around in the road, Blaine went on into the parking lot and lo and behold, there was an empty space right at the entrance to the hike! We counted ourselves very blessed!
Don’t they seem small to you?
However.
Once we got out and surveyed the situation, we discovered that this was the start of a .3-mile connecting trail to Cassidy Arch and the actual trail was additional 3.5 miles. We left the parking space for someone more motivated than we were.
As we drove out, there’s a place where you can pull over and get a glimpse of the arch. Once we did that, we were glad we hadn’t hiked all that way. It wasn’t particularly impressive.
Lunch today was in a lovely park in the middle of the Fruita District! And we were able to walk around and explore a bit too – an outdoor history lesson of sorts.
Doesn’t look like much – at least not this time of year.
Very impressive!
Doesn’t look like it could hold more than a half dozen kids. : )
Next, we made a stop at the petroglyphs. There were quite a few people here too, but we kept our distance as much as we could. We didn’t get good pictures, but we took our binoculars with us and got fantastic views of these wonderful and unexpected engravings. Some of the pictures were the same as we’ve been seeing all Spring. But some were quite unique to us.
Doesn’t the one on the right look like a necklace?
I had to make the picture black and white so you could see them. : (
They have free viewers you can use, but we just used our own binoculars.
The other pictures we took didn’t turn out at all. : (
A stop to do a portion of the Chimney Rock Loop Trail,
. . . and then, Blaine wanted to return to a portion of the Scenic Route 12 overlooks, so he could actually see them. Last time, he was too busy driving our 40-foot monster and towing a Jeep to look around at anything but the road in front of him.
That’s the end of the day. See you tomorrow!