Capitol Reef is a beautiful park with lots to see and do. We started by taking the scenic drive and a few of the easier hikes in the park. We started out to do a hike to see an arch named Cassidy Arch (named after Butch Cassidy because he used to hang out around there), but the climb was so steep and on the side of a mountain that half way up to the arch I chickened out and said it wasn't worth it. After completing all the hiking and picture taking we wanted to do on the scenic drive it was time for lunch so we went back to a picnic area in the park in what used to be the town of Fruita. Fruita was a Morman settlement from the late 1860's thru around the 1960's. It's abandoned now but the NPS has kept as much as possible preserved for everyone to see. The park, surrounded by fruit orchards which were planted by the residents of Fruita, was so peaceful. We found that deer enjoyed the park as much as us. Our sandwiches that we had gotten from the general store were nothing short of gourmet, much to our surprise. We had chosen their chicken salad which had fresh cranberries in the salad and it was delicious.
After lunch we continued on with the sightseeing and visited some other historic sights left by previous residents, these however predated the Mormans. These were petroglyphs left by the Fremont Indians, ancestors to the current day Hopi. The petroglyphs dated over 700 years ago. After the petroglyphs we explored a few more of the historic buildings left behind by the Mormans, then returned back to our B&B to prepare for dinner and another early night to bed.
Following are the pictures from Capital Reef N.P.:
