Capitol Reef National Park
Visited May 17, 2026
A happy surprise! We planned for just 2 parks on our Utah trip, Arches and Canyonlands. But, we finished those so fast that we were able to devote a day to Capitol Reef!
This was a really charming little park. It didn't feel like it had much more to offer in terms of scenery than the other 2, but it really made up for it by having the fresh made pies!
Gifford House Pie!
This was truly the best. This little house has fresh baked pies (daily I think). We got 2, one apple one mixed berry. We ate the mixed berry the same day, and saved the apple for later. We then forgot about the apple and never ate it, huge mistake!
This was such a welcome little stop after all the walking and rushing around we did the day previous.
Cohab Canyon
Cohab canyon was our first hike we did in the park, and it wasn't even all that big. Maybe a couple miles. We saw lots of rocks with weird divots that reminded us of the rocks in the Chuckanuts
Fruita Schoolhouse
We learned that this place used to be called 'Fruita' on account of the thousands of fruit trees they have planted here, that continue to grow. We stopped along the road and checked out the old schoolhouse. They had a little post outside the building with a speaker that gave you some info on how it used to operate.
Petroglyphs
We were stoked to see even more of these after the surprise ones at Arches the day prior. These were really interesting, like a whole family of portraits, and also some Fruita residents as well, as well as some faint deer looking animals in the second picture
Scenic Drive
We did the scenic drive out to the lot at the end of the road, and didn't end up going off the pavement to try to keep our rental car from getting dinged. This was a great place to enjoy our pie though!
Natural Bridge
We finished the day off with a hike out to this natural bridge: "Hickman Natural Bridge". We never did learn the difference between an arch and bridge. This was pretty impressive though, I'd rate it better than a lot of the arches sights. There was also a fun hole-in-the-ground bonus bridge as well. This one was pretty long and a bit tiring.
Canyon Walk
I tried talking Juli into walking up the dry stream into the canyon near the park enterance to see the path where the walls get really tight. That turned out to be way way into the trail and we kinda did this for nothing. IDK if I'd recommend anyone do this walk. I'd save your energy for stuff later on unless I was really missing something
National Parks Log
- ✓Zion National Park(Utah)Rank #3
- ✓Arches National Park(Utah)Rank #4
- ✓Rocky Mountain National Park(Colorado)Rank #5
- ✓Capitol Reef National Park(Utah)Rank #11
- ✓Canyonlands National Park(Utah)Rank #13
Remaining Bucket List
- ○Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park(Colorado)
- ○Bryce Canyon National Park(Utah)
- ○Glacier National Park(Montana)
- ○Grand Teton National Park(Wyoming)
- ○Great Sand Dunes National Park(Colorado)