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We’d had a full day in Capitol Reef National Park, having begun our tour before dawn to watch the sun rise in Cathedral Valley. As we headed towards the park exit at the end of the day, we made one more stop at Panorama Point.
If you are driving east on Route 24, the parking lot for Panorama Point is the first one after you pass the park entrance. Everyone stops here, so it can be crowded.
The short rock trail takes you from the parking lot to the top of a plateau where there are 360-degree views of the park. There are some educational displays up there about the pure air quality in the park that contributes to the amazing views.
From this vantage point, it’s easier to visualize the waterpocket fold as a reef, or barrier to travel. The rocky spine of the fold stretches on as far as the eye can see.
Capitol Reef posts:
- Cathedral Valley
- Goblin Valley State Park
- Hickman Bridge
- Scenic Drive
- Panorama Point
Location: Wayne, Utah
Designation: National Park
Date designation declared: 12/18/1971
Date of my visit: 4/13/2017
I feel like I need to give this park a second chance. I didn’t like it as much as some of the other Utah parks, but that’s probably because we got lost in there and took an hour detour off the hiking trail lol 🙂 Great pictures, as always!
Everything we saw in Capitol Reef was squeezed into one really long day. We probably needed two days here to do it justice.
We took a guided jeep tour and it was well worth it given the challenge of finding one’s way around and the condition of some of the roads. It also provided much better background than we could have done on our own.
Yes, the first half of our day in this park was spent exploring the cathedral valley section with a guide. We never would have found it ourselves
Beautiful
Thanks!
I enjoyed my visit there, but had to cut it short when I sprained my knee. Hopefully I’ll get back to see more. You had much better weather – great photos!
Thanks and ouch! Hope you get to go back on a nice day!
Combining highway 24 with highway 12 has to be one of America’s most scenic drives. –Curt
Oh yes, it was a lovely drive, especially 12… I wanted to pull over every few minutes
Us too!
I gave never been to this park. Thanks for an interesting blog post!
Glad you enjoyed my post! 🙂
Thanks for visiting my “Glaciers!!” post. I reciprocated with a follow, since your coverage of Capitol Reef has great photographs.
nice post! I was planning to go there in Mar but was still too cold. I recently started blogging, check it out & feel free to give a feedback 🙂
http://bigworldawaits.travel.blog
Thanks! The weather was nice in April
Capital Reef is one of our favorite parks. We love staying in the orchard turned campground.
It’s a great park…wish we’d had more than a day there
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