A Capitol Fall

A crisp, fall day enticed us to visit Capitol Reef National Park and did not disappoint, providing a rich palette of desert colors enhanced by golden cottonwoods near the main campground for this park.

Capitol Reef was first established as a national monument of 37,711 acres in 1933 during the administration of president F.D. Roosevelt, fulfilling the dream of Ephraim P. Pectol and brother-in-law, Joseph S. Hickman that dated back to 1914. In 1933, Roger Toll, Yellowstone Park superintendent, along with Pectol, toured this amazing landscape and submitted their recommendation to Horace Albright, then director of the National Park service to set this unique geologic wonder aside. Then, in 1971, President Nixon signed into law, a new designation making Capitol Reef a national Park with acreage increased to 254,000. The CCC worked diligently on improvements from 1938 to 1942, constructing a stone, multi-purpose building and improving roads, trails and bridges. The paving of Utah HWY 24, brought an increase in visitors with over 150,000 in 1962. Today, as many as 1.2 million travelers visit the park. Capitol Reef is not only a unique, geologic landscape of soaring cliffs and plunging canyons. It also hosts archeological ruins, pictographs and petroglyphs, and wildlife.