This is the third in an ongoing series of diaries profiling our National Parks and public lands. This week I would like to introduce you to Capitol Reef National Park, designated as a National Monument in 1937 and recognized by Congress as a National Park in 1971. Capitol Reef is one of our national parks system's best (and least well-known) examples of the diverse nature of our National Park Service's mission:
"...to promote and regulate the use of the...national parks...which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." -- 16 U.S.C. 1, the National Park Service Organic Act
The first two diaries in the series are:
Each of these places is special in the hearts of those who visit them and come to know them. If you have a special attachment to one of our National Parks or public lands and want to tell others here about it, please sign up at the Daily Kos Park Avenue Parks Signup Form.
To Conserve the Scenery...
The story of Capitol Reef National Park began, as stories about our national parks are wont to do, with local activism. In 1921, a few men from the region - most notably Ephraim Pectol and Joseph Hickman - organized with their neighbors to begin promoting and protecting the spectacular local scenery, which they dubbed "Wayne Wonderland", after the county name. Together, they eventually raised enough money to hire a photographer, J.E. Broaddus, to take pictures of the area and then go on tour to promote it. Pectol and Hickman gained some prominence with their election to the Utah legislature, and shortly after being elected Pectol contacted President Franklin Roosevelt, asking him to create a Wayne Wonderland National Monument to protect the land that he loved. After four years of study, with the government investigators often guided by Ephraim Pectol himself, President Roosevelt declared the creation of Capitol Reef National Monument to protect a portion of the area.
At first the monument was "managed" from the quite distant Zion National Park. Due to the remoteness of the area Capitol Reef received little visitation and even less attention from the cash-strapped Park Service until a push during the 1960's both in National Park development and in road construction led to a dramatic increase in tourism. There was no paved access to the region until 1962; tourists wishing to see the monument literally drove on the usually dry riverbed of a gorge that cut through the Reef. Flash floods (and the need to re-grade the riverbed afterward) were a constant deterrent to visitors at the time. The creation of a paved Utah Route 24 opened the area for the first time to the slightly less adventurous.
With additional visitation came the desire to protect more of the area from development; ranchers and uranium prospectors were active all around the monument property, grazing their cattle and digging holes in the scenic land. Presidents Johnson and Nixon both increased the size of the monument - to much controversy - until it became so large the inevitable question was popped: shouldn't Capitol Reef become a National Park? Congress, wary of the opposition of the ranching interests in the area, agreed in 1971 to create Capitol Reef National Park - but with a 25 year grace period for ranching within the new park. Wayne Wonderland, Ephraim Pectol and Joseph Hickman's childhood dream, was preserved.
Protecting Natural Objects
Capitol Reef National Park's boundaries mostly outline a 75 mile stretch of a geologic formation called the Waterpocket Fold, with two extensions that protect nearby sites.
The Fold is a classic example of what geologists call a monocline (literally, a one-sided "step up" in the rock), caused by motion on an ancient fault line and exposed by erosion. The tilted rock layers within the park expose more than ten thousand feet of formerly vertical rock deposits, allowing geologists somewhat of a quick tour dating from the Permian period through the Pleistocene (about 280 million through 35 million years ago).
The exposure of the rocks uplifted by the fold has created miles and miles of classic Western desert scenery, but the area protected by the original national monument - Capitol Reef itself -is especially beautiful. "Capitol" comes from the towering white caps of petrified Navajo Sandstone dunes (which might make those of you more familiar with Washington D.C. or our various state capitals feel more at home...). "Reef" comes from a local word for a stone ridge presenting a barrier to travel (in this case, the Waterpocket Fold). The Fold is riddled with gorges and canyons that are great to explore if you have a bit of time to really discover the park; if you visit, you should at least drive in to one of the gorges along the scenic road, then park and take a hike further along the dry riverbed and into the depths of the Reef.
The northern side of the park spreads out away from the Waterpocket Fold to protect two other geologic features - the South Desert and the spectacular stone monuments of Cathedral Valley. The rough and remote drive of the Cathedral Valley Loop is the highlight of any trip I take to the Capitol Reef region. While technically passable (sometimes) in a passenger car, I would not recommend the drive to anyone without a rugged reasonably high clearance vehicle, as the trip includes a river ford (usually about 10-12" of water), stretches of somewhat deep (8-9") loose sand, and travel across rock-bed roads. The destination, however, is incomparable.
The Temple of the Moon |
The Temple of the Sun |
Conserving History
While the cliffs and lithified dunes of the Capitol Reef are the most immediately eye-catching features of Wayne Wonderland, the hub of the park is arguably centered around its historical structures. Not only is Capitol Reef a spectacular scenic park, it also holds a surprising variety of historic tales for a visitor to uncover, and unlike the remote beauty of the Cathedral Valley, the park's historical sites are mostly accessible from roadside pull-outs along Utah Route 24 or the beginning of the park's scenic drive.
The region's history of human habitation dates back to the native Fremont culture which thrived in the area between AD 600 and AD 1300, disappearing at around the same time - and with the same lack of explanation - as the Ancestral Puebloan people that inhabited Mesa Verde and many other famous sites in the Southwest. The Fremont people left behind petroglyphs and adobe granaries within the current park boundaries; a roadside boardwalk takes tourists along one petroglyph panel not far from the park headquarters.
When the Fremont culture died off, the region remained unoccupied for a long time; while Ute and Paiute tribes wandered through the area occasionally, none called it home. In the winter of 1854 John Charles Fremont, "The Great Pathfinder", traveled through the Cathedral Valley area on his last attempt to map out a 38th parallel route for a transcontinental railroad. Surprisingly, much of Fremont's route on this last attempt was unknown until the 1990's, and the key to understanding it was a steel engraving apparently made by Fremont that would have been easily recognized long ago but for the fact that it was modeled from a daguerreotype, which records images flipped horizontally.
Following the Civil War, Mormon expeditions began to explore and eventually settle the area surrounding Capitol Reef. John Wesley Powell's men also spent some time in the area in the 1870s, but it wasn't until the 1880's that settlers actually moved in to the area now covered by the park, settling at the Junction of Sulphur Creek and the Fremont River right at the base of the cliffs of Capitol Reef. There the settlers - no more than ten (sometimes very large) families at any point - found an oasis they called "The Eden of Wayne County". Life was hard and the village very isolated pretty much until the National Park Service began to take notice of this hearty pioneer town surviving in its midst in the middle of the 20th century.
The Great Depression came and went with barely a notice by the settlers, isolated as they were. The crops they had worked hard to nourish kept them quite well through the hard times of the 30's. They sold their goods as far away as Price, one hundred miles to the north across forbidding desert terrain. What crop could be so valuable? Fruit and nut trees producing a bountiful harvest due to the life-giving waters of the Fremont River. The Park Service preserves them, too, maintaining NPS's largest working orchard as a Rural Historic Landscape. Within these small family orchard plots are a variety of fruit trees - mostly Apple but also Peach, Pear, Apricot, Cherry, and Plum - as well as some Almond and Walnut trees. Many of the trees are of historic stock - varieties that are no longer grown or are at the least uncommon. (One of these, the Greening, used to be the preferred apple for use in pies, but it was apparently hard to grow and has been largely replaced by Granny Smiths. I hadn't heard of them since I was a kid growing up in New Jersey...) When it's ripe, visitors to the park are allowed in to the groves to pick their own fruit - if you eat it inside the orchard, it's free; if you carry it out you have to pay a small fee.
The Park Service eventually purchased all of the properties in Fruita (the last resident left in 1969) and has preserved a number of structures as an historic area. The largest residence, the Gifford House, is part museum and part old time general store, with goods made from the fruit in the orchards (nummy!!!).
Preserving Wild Life
Capitol Reef is home to more than 900 cataloged plant species including at least six threatened or endangered species. That bounty of plant diversity in turn attracts a wide variety of birds and mammals, though aside from the Mule Deer that frequent the Fruita area they are generally very good at hiding (or relatively rare). It is hard to highlight creatures which are so elusive, so I'll just leave you with a sample... Within the park one bird stands out in my mind above the rest due to it's lovely song - the Canyon Wren; though somewhat shy in making appearances, its cascading notes echo through the gorges loud and clear. Among the mammals found at the park, the one I most hope to see is the Ringtail, but so far I haven't been that lucky. The cacti of Capitol Reef are perhaps my favorite park plants, relatively small but capable of doing great injury to one's feet - and gloriously beautiful when in bloom.
Desert Valley Fishhook Cactus |
Claret Cup Cactus Bloom |
For the Enjoyment of All... Unimpared for Future Generations?
Today, Capitol Reef National Park is officially part of the "Grand Circle" tour of Southwest Desert parks, circling from the Grand Canyon to Zion to Bryce, through Capitol Reef, and on to Arches and Canyonlands and back to Grand Canyon perhaps through Monument Valley. But to the relief of many, Capitol Reef receives almost none of the attention of the other parks. Most tours passing through stop only at the few pulloffs along Utah 24, or perhaps take a quick trip down the 10-mile paved scenic tour road. The rest of the park is preserved in part because of the lack of development; the park's dirt roads, rough, narrow and/or winding, see little traffic.
The remoteness of Capitol Reef means that it has some of the best air quality in the country, as well as some of the best night sky views. In such a seemingly pristine environment, even a jet contrail can seem like an affront. Of course, the pressure of increasing tourism presents a much larger threat to the rugged beauty of the park, but even that has been dwarfed in recent years...
In 2003, after 9/11 gave President Bush the excuse he needed to start up what has become the "drill, baby, drill" mantra, oil and gas companies were given expedited permits and access to sensitive public lands that had previously been off-limits to them. Halliburton and others swiftly sent "thumper" trucks out to these mostly BLM lands, including land within sight of many of the arches in Arches National Park... and including the BLM land bordering Cathedral Valley in Capitol Reef. The BLM proposal recommended that these heavy trucks avoid the roads taken by tourists into Cathedral Valley, but the oil companies responded that those other roads might not be able to support the vehicles as well; the Bush BLM, of course, caved at the request, and the thumper trucks headed in (through National Park lands, without the NPS's knowledge, I might add). As soon as the park service heard about this incursion on to the Loop roads, they protested to the BLM and got the thumpers back on to the original recommended paths - but the damage was done. I was there several months later, and the exploration companies, park service and BLM together had not figured out how to repair the damage - long stretches of desert road previously composed of hardened desert dirt that had been turned into deep pits of loose sand capable of capturing most vehicles. The park got off lucky; the roads were eventually repaired and no significant oil or gas was found - otherwise there would probably be oil rigs within sight of the Temples of the Sun, Moon and Stars. This near miss was a reminder to me that simply designating a National Park is not enough - we still have to fight to protect our parks and other public lands from irreversible damage such as that which threatens Grand Canyon and other wonderful places in our country.
I hope you've enjoyed this (not so) brief introduction to one of my favorite National Parks, and to the important mission of our National Park Service.
Pectol Pyramid, named after Ephraim Pectol |
Hickman Bridge, named after Joseph Hickman |
