Day 5 – To Capitol Reef National Park

Dad and I both have been waking up at first light, around 5:30. 

Here’s the difference between us, though: I open my eyes, check the time on my phone, then close my eyes and pretend to go back to sleep.

Dad bolts upright, asks if I’m awake, tries to start a conversation with me, rummages through his clothes, gets dressed, rummages through his clothes again, tries to start another conversation with me, unzips the screen to let himself out, zips the screen back up, forgets his keys, unzips and zips the screen again, announces his Wordle score, hikes to the bathroom, returns from the bathroom, and tries to start another conversation about everything that he saw on his way. And that’s all by 5:35 a.m.

On the plus side, my hand-ground pour-over coffee is waiting for me by 6 a.m. <3

Also on the plus side: Even if we enjoy a leisurely breakfast and take our time breaking down the campsite, we are still packed, hitched and ready to go by 8 a.m. 

 

That was the case this morning. Since we had only a 3.5-hour drive ahead of us – to Capitol Reef National Park – we weren’t feeling rushed. So, after we rolled out of the campground, instead of turning left toward the state park gate, we turned right and drove to the end of the road to check out the views from Dead Horse Point. 

 

For what it’s worth: The eye-popping, gob-smacking vistas from that point by far outclass anything we saw at the national park yesterday.

 

Back on the road, we drove across the magnificent moonscape that is southern Utah – past soaring monoliths and majestic mesas, across windswept desert and through green river valleys. The route was spectacular, of course. But driving that route to a soundtrack of Emmylou Harris? Mwah. Chef’s kiss.

 

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I shit you not: On the drive today, Dad asked, “When are we going to cross over the border into Utah?” 

 

“Uhhh, two days ago.”

 

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By lunchtime, we arrived in the town of Torrey – a leafy oasis in the Fremont River Valley – about 10 miles from the Capitol Reef National Park visitor center. It’s the perfect little National Park town – a funky mix of hippy-dippy meets Mormon -- with a handful of coffee shops, an artisanal creamery and a gallery selling local crafts all in the shadow of a resplendent Latter-day Saints church.

 

We grabbed a bite to eat at the White Rabbit Café, then spent the afternoon at Austin’s Chuck Wagon General Store – a cheerful little grocery shop/motel/laundromat with pay-showers out back. We restocked supplies, washed a couple loads of laundry, got ourselves cleaned up and used free wifi to post to the blog. I love this place. Five out of five stars. Would definitely recommend.

 

From Torrey, we drove directly to our campground at Capitol Reef National Park. The park preserves a portion of the Waterpocket Fold, a kind of a wrinkle on the earth’s crust that extends nearly 100 miles from central to southern Utah – created between 50 and 70 million years ago when an ancient fault lifted layers of sedimentary rock more than 7,000 feet. Rather than cracking, the layers folded to the east, across the fault line. Then, millions of years of erosion sculpted massive domes, arches, bridges and twisting canyons. (The park was named for the white domes of Navajo sandstone, which reminded early European American travelers of the dome of the U.S. Capitol building, while the formidable cliffs reminded them of ocean reefs that created hazards for ships at sea.) 

(Note to self: My next album will be called "Waterpocket Fold.")

 

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The Fremont River cuts from east to west through the middle of the Waterpocket Fold, sustaining an improbably fertile valley in the midst of this rugged landscape. The Ancestral Puebloans lived in the valley from around 300 to 1300 CE, and they supplemented their hunter-gatherer lifestyle by farming corn, beans and squash along the waterways and floodplains. 

 

In the 1880s, Mormons established the small settlement of Fruita along the Fremont River. They built irrigation systems to water orchards and pastures, and sustained a self-reliant agricultural lifestyle for decades. 

 

Today, most of the national park services can be found in this valley, including the visitors center and the Fruita Campground, which is where we’re spending the night. The campground is essentially a wide-open meadow tucked between two looming buttes. It's feels a bit like we're camping in someone's back yard; there's not a lot of privacy. 

 

This will be my profile picture for everything, everywhere, now and forevermore. 

All around us are historic orchards, which were planted from the 1880s to the 1960s by Latter-Day Saints pioneers. Today, the orchards are preserved and protected as part of the national park and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The orchards contain approximately 3,000 trees, including cherry, apricot, peach, nectarine, pear, apple, plum, mulberry, quince, almond, pecan and walnut – and many of them are heirloom varieties. Depending on the season, different orchards are open for picking, and visitors are welcome to wander the orchards and sample the fruit, as well as to harvest the fruit to take with them. (Self-pay stations are set up near the orchard gates.)

The apricots are in season now. The trees are loaded – and the ground is littered – with the juicy orange fruits. And the air is heavy with their sweet, warm fragrance. 

 

After dinner, Dad and I walked to the campground amphitheater for a rambling ranger talk about dark sky preservation. This poor kid: His talk was not very engaging, so Dad and I snuck out before it was over.

Because our campsite is in a narrow valley, we’re not getting a great breeze through the Teardrop. It’s pretty stuffy in here. Hopefully it will cool off, and we can get some sleep!