Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
Capitol Reef National Park is the forgotten member of Utah’s big 5 national parks. Personally, I am quite grateful that it is forgotten as it means fewer people. Most people I talk to have never heard of it and have no idea where it is located. The park is in southern Utah between Torrey and Hanksville. It is a beautiful place but there are few paved roads within the park. Once again, I am happy there are so few roads. This allows the park to stay more natural and wild.
This area was settled in 1870’s with farms and orchards (hence the name Fruita). The Park Service maintains these orchards and when the fruit is in season you can pick it. The Gifford House, which is open from March 14 until around October 31, sells homemade crafts and, more importantly, fresh baked fruit pies and cinnamon rolls. We completely botched the timing of our visit because we left on March 13, the day before the Gifford House opened for the season. So no pies or cinnamon rolls for us. Oh well, I guess we have to go back in the fall.
Tips for visiting
If you are planning a visit, here are a couple of tips we learned from our research before the trip and experience on the trip.
Check out the website https://www.nps.gov/care/index.htm to get the latest information on hours and if there are any current restrictions.
Camping: We camped in the Fruita Campground located in the park. This is located near the Gifford House, about a half mile from the visitors center, with several trails adjacent to the campground. Reservations are recommended from March through October. During our visit in early March we made reservations but there were several first come first serve sites available. During peak season later in the spring or during the fall I don’t think these would be available. Personally, I would just make a reservation so you don’t have to worry about where you are going to sleep. One final note, there is no cell service in the campground. The closest place with cell service was at Panorama Point and even there it was spotty at best.
When to Visit: Winters are cold and Summers are quite hot. This is high desert after all. Personally, I would recommend Spring or Fall. The temperatures are nice and the Gifford House is open so you can snag some fresh pies and cinnamon rolls.
Gear: Good hiking shoes because you will be hiking all over the place here. Wind Jacket is very useful because it can get very windy in this area. Several evenings it got quite windy after the sun went down so having some wind protection was quite handy.
Safety: Keep in mind that several of the areas that you will be hiking in are washes and canyons. Make sure you check the weather because these areas are prone to flash flooding. Storms that are miles away can cause flash floods and a canyon or wash is the last place you want to be during one of these floods.
Tips for photography
Capitol Reef is a beautiful place for photography. Many of the locations are in canyons and as a result you will be hunting for reflected light for most of your shots. The area also has very dark skies so astrophotography is quite good in the park, or so I have heard. During our visit we had clouds most nights, so I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the stars.
Lenses: I brought three lenses with me for my Fuji GFX 50R 23mm, 45-100mm, and 100-200mm. Keep in mind that these are for a medium format camera so the full frame equivalent is .8x smaller. This group of lenses easily covered everything I needed.
Filters: I would recommend bringing a standard set of filters that includes ND’s, soft graduated filter, polarizer, etc. To be honest I really didn’t use that many filters during our visit but it is handy to have in case the conditions call for a filter.
Thank you for reading and hopefully this helps you on your visit to the Narrows. If you have any other tips or suggestions, please let me know.
Eric