Celebrating National Park Week: Capital Reef, Canyonlands and Arches National Parks

A hiking trail headed into yet another canyon in Capital Reef National Park.

I threw these three parks together in one post as, well, I visited one after the other, all of which are in southern Utah.  I started at Capital Reef National Park, before moving due west as the crow flies (but not as the Sprinter travels) to Canyonlands, which is only 16 to 24 km (~10 to 15 miles) southwest of Arches National Park.  Arches is just up the road from Moab, Utah, hot place when I arrived in the summer of 2017.  I mountain biked late one morning just north of town, air temperature was just over 40 degrees C (105 degrees F), brutal but fun.  These are three national parks all within an easy days ride of one another, different but the same, beautiful, majestic, and raw.  All three parks are on at least part of the Colorado Plateau, "high desert", so not much rain, but lots of mesas, buttes, canyons and rocks.  Oh, I do miss the desert.

Like many national parks, Capital Reef was first designated as a national monument, in 1937.  And while it took quite a few years, Capital Reef became a national park in 1971.  While not a huge park at 978.95 square km (241,904 acres), the combination of canyons, domes, towers, cliffs and arches offer much to explore.  Much of the park is dominated by the Waterpocket Fold, a huge geologic feature, a rocky spine 160 km (nearly 100 mi) long, part of which is preserved in the park.  The rocks of the Fold are over 65 million years old, the result of a chunk of the earth's crust being thrust up by tectonic activity.  I camped here one night, in the Fruita Historic District along the Fremont River, biked the Scenic Drive until I ran out of pavement, hiked, explored, and thoroughly enjoyed Capital Reef.  This was a park which was never really on my "must see" list, but I really had fun here, though hot and dusty, Capital Reef is a hidden gem.

Canyonland National Park, .... I did not spend enough time in, and round, this beautiful park.  The park is actually pretty large, 1,366.2 square km (337,598 acres), and is divided into four districts, The Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze, and the rivers, the Colorado and Green Rivers which join together in the park, the Confluence.  The rivers are what makes this park, as they carved out a complex landscape of canyons, mesas and buttes, and the rivers provide life-giving water to the diverse flora and fauna of yet another desert park.  I camped only one night in the park, the Island in the Sky (Willow Flat) Campground, a small campground with only 12, first-come, first-served campsites.  And, the campground is within walking distance of the Green River Overlook, spectacular in the late afternoon sun.  I also hiked out to Murphy Point, it was hot, and I was glad that I had plenty of water.  Oh, and potable water is only available at the Visitor Center.  I would definitely like to get back to Canyonlands one day, maybe during the off-season, fall or winter, get into the backcountry and really explore.

And finally, I got to visit Arches National Park, a very busy place with over 1.6 million visitors a year (2018).  The park is actually pretty small (310.3 square km, 76,679 acres), at least compared to Canyonlands, and is very accessible to most people.  The only campground in the park, in the Devil's Garden area was closed when I visited, as were many pull-offs.  But I still was able to hike and explore the many rock and sandstone arches for which the park gets its name.  There are over 2000 natural stone arches in the park, along with all kinds of other rock formations.  Devil's Garden has a campground (51 primitive sites), and lots of hiking trails, most of which take you to a diverse array of beautiful arches, from the longest, Landscape Arch (light opening 93.3 m, ~306 ft), to the smaller, ground-level Pine Tree Arch, at the end of a side trail.  The park was very busy when I was there, traffic was actually bad, but again, I saw, and photographed lots, even if I was never really alone anywhere in the park.  Again, Arches is worthy of another visit, but definitely in the off-season.

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