Utah Capitol Reef National Park map and highlights

Capitol Reef, Utah on the map. National Park Capitol Reef  (Utah state) on the map of US.    

Below: The rugged cliffs of Capital Reef offer a striking contrast to the orchards below.    

Capitol Reef, Utah    

Established: 1971   Acreage: 241,904    

The Navajo Indians called it the 'Land of the Sleeping Rainbow' —  a strange, but beautiful, country where colors of the rainbow can be  seen in the many rock layers. Capitol Reef was so rugged and remote that  it remained almost untouched by white settlers until the late 1800s. It  resembled an ocean reef around a tropical island—difficult to cross.  The term 'reef as applied to land formations means a ridge of rock that  is a barrier. This reef was named for one of its high points, Capitol  Dome, which looks like the dome of the US Capitol.    

Capitol Reef National Park is located on the Colorado Plateau.  As the area began rising to its present heights toward the end of the  age of dinosaurs, pressures on the rock increased as the plateau rose,  and resulted in a 100-mile long formation called the Waterpocket Fold.  Considered unique by geologists because of its great size, it is the  main reason for the establishment of the park. As the rock was folding,  it was also eroding, creating the cliff faces, arches, monoliths and  canyons one sees today.    

The lush vegetation along the fertile plains of the Fremont  River provides a stark contrast to the barren cliffs and terraces.  Cottonwoods and willows grow along the riverbanks, but plant life exists  in the drier parts of the park as well. Hardy pinyon jay, pinyon pine  and Utah juniper live in the dry sandstone of the terraces. The sandy  floor, piles of rock debris and water-worn holes on the canyon walls are  home to side-blotched lizard, antelope squirrel and canyon wren. After a  rain, pockets of rain remain, forming a temporary home for shrimp and  spadefoot tadpoles. By the time the water dries, the tadpoles have  progressed through their life cycles and become toads.    

Human beings inhabited the Capitol Reef area as long ago as 800  AD. The Fremont Indians lived along the Fremont River for about 400  years. Their petroglyphs seem to indicate hunting, because they show  desert bighorn sheep and figures of people. Some of their stone tools  and storage bins—moki huts —still exist in the park. Later, Paiute  Indians passed through Capitol Reef, hunting game and gathering food,  but humans would not live in the area again until the Mormons settled  there in 1880. The tiny town of Fruita, as the Mormon community was  called, was widely known for its orchards— which are now protected by  the National Park Service as a historic landscape.   

Capitol Reef, Utah on the map. National Park Capitol Reef  (Utah state) on the map of US.