Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T!

After our hike to Hickman Bridge, we drove back to the Visitor Center where we perused the displays about the park’s geological history. The rock formations in the park are sedimentary…loose matter that has settled in layers and has compressed into rock. Each layer is from a different period of the Earth’s history.

Next we continued on the service road past the Visitor Center to the Gifford Homestead. The Giffords were the last residents of Fruita and sold their property to the NPS in 1969.

The NPS and the Capitol Reef Natural History Association maintain a working farm on the homestead site with a store that sells baked goods.

We admired the horses and then got back on the road to begin the Scenic Drive. Just past the Gifford barn is the entrance to the drive with a lock box for the fee charged to drive the road. This is the only section of the park where there is an entrance fee and it is on the honor system.

The drive itself is five miles out and back and is indeed quite scenic. We were there towards the end of the day and there weren’t any other cars on the road with us.

We stopped at a few points to take photos. There are trail heads all along the road worthy of exploration, but we will have to save that for a future visit.

Capitol Reef posts➤

• Cathedral Valley
• Goblin Valley State Park
• Hickman Bridge
• Scenic Drive
• Panorama Point

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Location: Wayne, Utah
Designation: National Park
Date designated/established: December 18, 1971
Date of my visit: April 13, 2017