Capitol Reef Adventure........not really.



Jason and I realized this summer how much we love camping, we camped on our coastal trip and thought we need to do that more often. We decided to go to Capitol Reef National Park for our labor day weekend. Jason had been the summer before with a group of BYU students and they open air painted and had lots of fun.

We headed out Saturday morning early because we knew alot of people would be going camping and we wanted to be sure to get a campsite.

Located in south-central Utah in the heart of red rock country, Capitol Reef National Park is a hidden treasure filled with cliffs, canyons, domes and bridges in the Water pocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles. 

 Mormon pioneers and others arrived in the 1800s, settling in what is now the Fruita Rural Historic District. They planted and nurtured orchards of apples, pears, and peaches. (ok done with the history lesson)

This is just part of the park. See the road? It is about 11 miles to the closest town and there is no cell service whatsoever inside the park. It really is a beautiful place and we enjoyed marveling and what our Father in Heaven created. Whats really neat is that all of this used to be under the ocean!

We set up camp and then went exploring! Our camp host was fun, He was a BYU fan.



We tried to take some cool artsy photos but our kids cant seem to jump all at the same time, so this is what we got.

Jason was showing the kids where the BYU students sat a drew last summer

I tried to take a panoramic shot of the view, this really doesn't do the park justice.

They had programs for the kids and so we took them around so they could earn their Jr explorer badge and a few others
These are the petroglyphs around the park, Indians settled here before the pioneers.
Can you see the carvings in the rocks?

The pioneers planted orchards and as long as you were within the park you could eat as much of the fruit as you wanted, you could also pick some to take with you if you were just driving thru and they only charged $1 a pound. We took some to eat later in the day. They were so very good!

Here is Lizzie enjoying the fruits of her labor (the sign says U-pick fruit)

 This was taken Sunday morning, Jason and I hiked a trail to get a good panoramic of the green valley, it was a gorgeous morning.

 

 

Jason enjoying the view!

 

I will share about our Sunday adventure in my next post.

I hope you are all ready!