The Majesty of Red Rock

 

When we arrived at the end of Highway 12, the weather had changed considerably. While we had started in rather dull, grey weather, when we arrived at Capitol Reef National Park we enjoyed an almost picture perfect day with the three primary colors on display - brilliant sunshine, blue sky and red rock.

Capitol Reef is the one of the five Utah national parks that most people think of last - Bryce Canyon, Arches and Zion are certainly the stars followed by Canyonlands and Capitol Reef is trailing behind. Maybe it's because it is the most remote of the parks - Bryce and Zion are much closer to each other and to a major Interstate whereas Arches and Canyonlands (Island in the Sky district) are practically across from each other and also close to an Interstate. Capitol Reef is the outlier. 

Which was just fine with us. Except at the visitors center there weren't many people touring the park. Granted, you are quite limited by car - there is only the main road and the Scenic Drive for a regular passenger car. It's a park for hiking, but this wasn't the season for that.

We arrived in the early afternoon and in true Bartz manner stopped all the time to watch and take it in. Of course, the shadow portrait was a must as well as a shot of our very dirty car, the result of driving the dirt road in Kodachrome Basin. 

No matter how often I'm here - and I've been here several times - the sheer grandness of the red rock is almost overwhelming.

We stopped at the Goosenecks Overlook from where the view is simply stunning.

What makes the scenery so clear to see and the colors so brilliant is the exceptionally clean air, one of the park's most valuable resources. In 1977, Capitol Reef was designated a Class I airshed, recognizing its exceptional quality and receiving the highest protection under the Clean Air Act.

You bet that I was happy to find some crooked trees.

The massive red rock along the Scenic Drive can be characterized with just one word: majestic.

At the almost end, you can get a very good impression of the tilting rock layers. You can see this throughout the park as well as the different colors of the layers, with the dominance of red.

At Capitol Gorge we watched this raven for a long time. His shenanigans were highly entertaining. I should have taken a video...

He (or she?) is today's face for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Back on the main road, I loved to see the beautiful cottonwoods. 

They are a perfect color match in this area.

There are also petroglyphs by the Fremont Culture in the park which are accessible by a boardwalk. However, when we finally got there, the light was already fading and I couldn't take any pictures.

So we said goodbye with a last view of the cottonwoods (this is the same picture like the first one at the top, but not as heavily processed. I really had fun with the top photo). We still had a bit of a drive to Hanksville where we had reserved a small cabin for the night (we did all our reservations of the trip the night before).