Capitol Reef Colors

On a Sunny Saturday I had a fine visit to Capitol Reef NP, a rugged land of color, form, and grandeur.

I hiked Grand Wash, a normally dry streambed in a canyon with walls towering more than 500 feet above the wadi.  The canyon has a rich blend of earth colors...brown, white, and every shade in between for the rocks; hues of green for the junipers, pinyons, and sage that dot the slopes; and brilliant blue for the sky.

This is the Lizards' favorite type of landscape!  Here they have found shelter in one of countless holes eroded in the canyon sandstone.

The canyon walls soar to the sky.

On my visit Grand Wash was bone dry, but obviously it's not always that way...this was mud in fairly recent times.  Exactly three years ago I visited Capitol Reef; then thunderstorms were pouring rain on the landscape and I'm sure Grand Wash was a torrent.

Looking down the wash.  It's about two miles from one end to the other, very gently sloping; an easy and scenic hike with plenty of shade.

Desert varnish paints the canyon walls in many places.

Varnish closeup.  It's composed of particles of clay, with iron and manganese oxides.  The mixture runs down the cliff face during rains, coating the rock with these patterns.

The floor of the wash presents a fine abstract scene.

Sandstone holes.  It's understandable why so many artists migrate to the American West...the natural artforms here are infinite.

A narrow spot in the wash.

Varnish, rock, sand, and sage.

More sandstone erosion.

Now I'm out of the wash, heading south on the scenic park drive.  This massive rock formation is topped by hard whitish rock, which has preserved the softer reddish sandstone below.  The sandstone was obviously deposited in many, many layers; this area used to be an ancient seabed, during the Cretaceous period roughly 80 million years ago.

Different hardness and mineral composition of the various rocks makes the scene.

This area of the park used to be a settlement called Fruita.  For close to a century, ending in 1969, settlers planted fruit orchards along the Fremont River.  With a perennial water supply and a long growing season, apples, peaches, and other crops thrived. They still do.  The orchards are now maintained by the National Park Service, and visitors can graze among the trees, or for a small fee they can pick the fruit and take it with them.

Soft morning light accentuates the forms and colors at Capitol Reef.

The mighty Fremont courses through the Waterpocket Fold.