Capital Reef National Park, Utah - a hidden treasure filled with cliffs, canyons, domes, and bridges in the Waterpocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles.
We found a great dispersed camping area to park the RV in right outside of the park. It had a number of spots that various sized rv's/vans could pull in as long as you didn't mind driving over some bumpy/rocky ground.
The first evening we were there we hiked the popular Hickman Bridge (which looked like an arch to me so not sure why it was called a bridge). It's a couple of miles round trip, requires some steady climbing, but really pretty. You pass through areas that look like someone scattered enormous charcoal briquets on the ground (they are volcanic rock) and then end up coming up to the natural bridge.
Then we drove to some overlooks to see the amazing colors!
The next day we decided to spend the day driving the off-road to Cathedral Valley. We knew we wouldn't be able to forge the river, with our small car, on the loop so we decided to just start off Hwy 24 and drive as far as we could and then turn around. You start by driving through some wide open drier areas with cool formations and just amazing colors throughout the layers of rock the further you go in.
There are a few side trips off the main dirt road that are super cool to take. One is to the Temples of the Sun & Moon as well as Glass Mountain.
The temples are super cool rock formations.
Glass Mountain is a really unique mound of rock made from large gypsum crystals (selenite) crystals, also known as moonstone. The gypsum was deposited from evaporating seawater approximately 165 million years ago (upper part of the Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation).
As the sun shines on it it looks like mosaics and glass shards sticking out every which way!
The next one was to the large Gypsum sinkhole which was scary and cool to see. It's hard to capture it on camera but here's an image of the actual hole.
Then you reach a junction where you continue on the Cathedral Valley loop and begin to enter the part where there are lots of monoliths. You begin to see the snow capped mountains in the background which are an amazing contrast to the dry red desert colors.
Then we got a surprise and saw three Pronghorn Antelope (one male and two females). I tried getting my longer lens out to capture some images. The images aren't as super crystal clear as I'd hoped since I had my settings on landscape and didn't get them adjusted before they headed off. I thought they were stunning.
At this point you begin to enter the Upper Cathedral area and begin to climb some step inclines to gain elevation with incredible panoramic views. There were lots more Juniper trees so the increase in green was super pretty with all the red/orange colors.
Then you reach the overlooks where there are sweeping views of what you've just driven through.
At this point we turned around and headed back which took a lot less time since we weren't constantly stopping to take pictures and explore! Was just a fantastic drive and we only saw a few people the entire day. If you have a higher clearance vehicle we highly recommend it!
We HIGHLY recommend grabbing food at Capital Burger if you can catch them at a location in Torrey. We had the BEST pork sandwich of our life and loved it so much we went back for a second time. They post where they are going to be on their facebook page.
Our last day we drove the Scenic Drive and onto the incredible Capital Gorge dirt road through slot canyon walls.
Then we hiked the trail to the natural waterpockets called the Tanks. They fill with water after rain storms and serve as much-needed pit stops for animals living in the area. Although they were dry it was super fun to explore the amazing rock formations around them.
