Park Hub°

Passport

A Park Hub Field Guide

Lat 38.2915° N
Long 111.2620° W

Elevation3,880 – 8,960 ft

Utah · Stamp 24 / 63

Capitol Reef

National Park · Established 1971

A 100-mile wrinkle in the earth's crust, a pioneer orchard still bearing fruit, and Utah's quietest Mighty 5 park.

Area241,904 acres

TrailheadTorrey, Utah

Visitors1.3M / yr

Scroll to begin the ascent

Live · Scenic Drive open Fruita orchards open for seasonal u-pick 1 active alert 74°F · high desert Live layer, from the National Park Service

Best windowApr–May, Sep–Oct · summer afternoons run hot Getting there3.5 hr from Salt Lake City · 45 min from Torrey Fee$20 / vehicle · 7 days

★★★★★ 4.8 from 3 travelers 1 visitor stories 1.3M annual visitors Grounded in live NPS data

Capitol Reef · Mile 01 · The Story

The quiet fifth of
Utah's Mighty Five.

Capitol Reef gets a fraction of the crowds that pour into Zion or Arches, and almost everyone who has been to all five will tell you that's the park's real advantage. Its defining feature is the Waterpocket Fold, a nearly 100-mile wrinkle in the earth's crust where rock layers buckled upward instead of breaking, creating a wall of cliffs and domes that early Mormon settlers thought resembled the U.S. Capitol building, which is where the park gets half its name.

The other half comes from a literal reef: early travelers found the sandstone cliffs as much a barrier to wagon travel as any ocean reef was to ships. In the middle of all that rock sits Fruita, a small orchard community settled in the 1880s that the park still maintains, with historic fruit trees visitors can pick from in season for a small self-serve fee.

Come for the quiet. Stay for the orchard, the arch, and the fact that you'll likely have most of it to yourself. Read the story, trust the live data above for what is open today, and when you leave, collect the stamp.

Product photo coming soon

From $11.98

Premium matte paper, museum-quality print. Ships in a protective tube. Price varies by size, chosen at checkout.

Get Your Capitol Reef Poster →

“

This is a Utah wonderland, an area little known but of exceeding beauty, well worthy of being made a national park.

Adapted from early National Park Service surveys that led to Capitol Reef's 1937 monument designation

Hickman Bridge · The Sandstone Arch

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

John Muir

Capitol Reef · Mile 02 · The Essentials

Best Things to Do in Capitol Reef

Six ways to spend your time, from a pioneer orchard to a hidden gorge with petroglyphs at every turn.

Walk to Hickman Bridge

A moderate climb to a 133-foot natural bridge, the park's signature short hike and one of the best photo spots.

The signature walk

Explore

Pick fruit in the Fruita orchards

Historic pioneer orchards still bearing cherries, apricots, peaches, and apples, open for self-serve picking in season.

Families · seasonal

Drive

Capitol Gorge Road

A narrow, one-way scenic drive through a wash carved by centuries of flash floods, ending at a trailhead with pioneer register signatures.

Casual · road-trippers

See

Petroglyphs near the visitor center

Fremont culture rock art visible from an accessible boardwalk a short walk from the main road.

Everyone · 15 min

Climb Cassidy Arch

Named for outlaw Butch Cassidy, this trail climbs to a viewpoint directly above a massive natural arch.

Half day · confident hikers

Explore

Gifford Homestead

A restored 1908 farmhouse selling fresh-baked pie and jam, the closest thing the park has to a bakery.

Everyone · arrive before 10am

Free · Ready in Seconds

Free AI Trip Planner

Plan Your Capitol Reef Trip

Answer a few questions right here — we'll map your day, stop by stop, with a route, timings, weather, and a packing checklist grounded in real park data. No account, no leaving this page.

Free preview · no card required

When the Crowds ComeMonthly visitors · tap a year

Illustrative shape · wires to official NPS visitation stats · summer peaks shown in gold

The Waterpocket Fold

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit."

Edward Abbey

Capitol Reef · Mile 03 · Trails & Viewpoints

Best Hikes in Capitol Reef, by Difficulty

Every trail rated honestly, with distance, climb, and a note on which ones follow an old wagon-worn wash.

Hickman Bridge Trail

Easy–Mod

1.7 mi+400 ft~1.5 hr

A steady climb to a 133-foot natural bridge with views back over the Fremont River valley. No permit.

Capitol Gorge Trail

Easy

2 miflat~1.5 hr

A flat walk down a narrow wash once used as the main highway through the reef, past pioneer register signatures and water tanks. No permit.

Grand Wash Trail

Easy

4.4 miflat~2.5 hr

A flat out-and-back through a narrow, high-walled canyon, one of the most dramatic easy walks in the park. No permit.

Cassidy Arch Trail

Moderate

3.4 mi+670 ft~3 hr

A steady climb up slickrock to a viewpoint looking straight down onto a massive natural arch. No permit.

Cohab Canyon Trail

Moderate

3.4 mi+700 ft~2.5 hr

A steep initial climb from Fruita into a hidden canyon, said to have sheltered polygamist families hiding from federal marshals. No permit.

Permit · overnight

Upper Muley Twist Canyon

Extreme

9.6 mi+1,600 ft6–8 hr

A remote, twisting canyon deep in the Waterpocket Fold with natural arches along the rim. A wilderness permit is required only for overnight camping.

No permit for day hikes · free backcountry permits for overnight camping in the Waterpocket Fold district · high-clearance recommended beyond Capitol Gorge

Capitol Reef National Park at a Glance

1 Capitol Reef Visitor Center

2 Hickman Natural Bridge

3 Capitol Gorge Trailhead

4 Fruita Schoolhouse

5 Gifford Homestead

6 Cassidy Arch Trailhead

Stops shown in visit order. Build a plan above and this map updates to your exact stops.

Capitol Reef · Mile 04 · Life in the Fold

Wildlife in Capitol Reef: Animals You Might See

Tap any animal to learn its story. Soon, the app will let you log what you spot and keep a life list for every park.

Common right in the Fruita historic district, often grazing near the orchards and campground in early morning.

Reintroduced to the park after disappearing in the early 1900s, now working the steep terrain of the Waterpocket Fold.

A raccoon relative with a long striped tail, hunting the canyon country at night and almost never seen by day visitors.

Nests on the sheer sandstone cliffs of the reef, occasionally visible diving over the canyons at high speed.

Breeds in temporary pools left by flash floods in slot canyons, its call a common desert-night sound after summer storms.

Males wander in search of mates each fall, occasionally crossing park roads on warm evenings.

A large ground squirrel common along the park's popular trails, adept at climbing sandstone to reach picnic areas.

Plant Life in Capitol Reef: What Grows Here

Cherry, apricot, peach, and apple trees planted by Mormon pioneer settlers in the 1880s, maintained by the park and open for seasonal self-serve picking.

Common on the drier slopes throughout the park, tough enough to survive in the thinnest desert soils.

A delicate white bloom found in the park's grasslands each late spring, historically used as a food source by Indigenous peoples and early settlers.

Bright scarlet spikes scattered along the reef's canyon rims each spring, partly parasitic on nearby grasses.

Erupts in vivid red, cup-shaped flowers each spring, visible from a distance against the pale sandstone.

Lines the Fremont River through Fruita, providing the only significant shade canopy in an otherwise exposed landscape.

Fun Facts About Capitol Reef

Fact 01

The Waterpocket Fold stretches nearly 100 miles, one of the longest monoclines, or single-direction rock folds, in North America.

Fact 02

The park's name combines a rock formation resembling the U.S. Capitol building with a nautical use of "reef" for a barrier to travel.

Fact 03

Fruita's historic orchards, still maintained by the park, were planted by Mormon pioneer settlers beginning in the 1880s.

Fact 04

Capitol Reef was designated a national monument in 1937 and upgraded to full national park status in 1971.

Capitol Reef · Provisions

Gear for this parkvia AvantLink

Trekking poles (slickrock)REI

Wide-brim sun hatBackcountry

3L hydration packOsprey

Stay nearbyvia Hipcamp

Orchard-adjacent sites near Fruita
Ten minutes from the visitor center, cottonwood shade included, from $25 a night.

Free Capitol Reef checklistdigital · $0

The printable trail and packing checklist in the field-guide style. Take it, join the trail list.

Capitol Reef · Mile 05 · From the Field Journal

Go Deeper on Capitol Reef

Stories, guides, and hard-won tips from the trail. The full Capitol Reef deep dive lives on the journal.

Trail Guide

★Capitol ReefPark Hub · Collected

Your passport

One stamp,
one story.

Log the visit, keep your story, and watch the map of all sixty-three fill in behind you. Every stamp has a keepsake worth holding.

Capitol Reef · Mile 06 · Where to Next

Keep the Journey Going

Next park

Bryce Canyon

West through Utah's Mighty Five: from an orchard in the reef to a canyon of stone spires.

Open Stamp 05 → The collection

All 63 Parks

See the full map and track every stamp you have earned.

View the map → Plan

Build a Trip

Turn Capitol Reef into a road trip with a custom, day-by-day itinerary.

Start planning → Go deeper

The Capitol Reef Deep Dive

The long-form guide: every trail, season, and secret, on the journal.

Read it →

Carry the field guide

Offline maps, your passport, and every park in your pocket on the trail.

The Book

Keepsake

The Park Hub field guide

The printed edition, part atlas, part journal, one story per park.

The Shop

Prints · pins · passport

Take Capitol Reef home

Field-guide posters, enamel stamps, and the passport book to fill in.

Thirty-nine parks remain

"The parks do not belong to one state or to one section... they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona."

Stephen Mather · first director of the National Park Service

Begin your journey