100 Fun Facts About Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park is in which US state?

It sits in the south-central part of the state, roughly between Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands.

What are the park's rough dimensions?

Its odd shape follows the fold; the park covers about 242,000 acres and is open all year.

The first half of the park's name comes from what?

The white domes run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek; the 'reef' half is a settlers' word for any rocky barrier to travel.

What did early settlers mean by a 'reef'?

Just as ocean reefs block ships, the parallel ridges of the fold blocked wagons; only one paved road crosses it today.

The geological backbone of the park is a nearly 100-mile warp in the Earth's crust called what?

It is the largest exposed structure of its kind in North America, with newer and older rock layers folded over each other in an S-shape.

The park's great fold is the largest exposed example in North America of what kind of structure?

It formed about 65 million years ago in the same continental collision that raised the Rockies; its east side dropped relative to the west.

What did local boosters call the area in the 1920s while campaigning for its protection?

Ephraim Pectol and his brother-in-law Joseph Hickman promoted it in newspapers and even paid a Salt Lake City photographer $150 to lecture on it.

Which president proclaimed Capitol Reef National Monument on 2 August 1937?

He set aside 37,711 acres; the Depression-era Park Service had no money to run it and it did not officially open to the public until 1950.

In which year did Capitol Reef become a national park?

The president signed Public Law 92-207 on 18 December after the House and Senate reconciled rival bills; grazing was to be phased out over 25 years.

Which president signed the law making Capitol Reef a national park?

Senator Frank Moss's bill S. 29 passed the Senate in June; the House then dropped its own version and accepted the Senate's.

What did Lyndon Johnson do for the monument in 1968, just before leaving office?

By 1970 the monument covered 254,251 acres from Thousand Lake Mountain almost to the Colorado River; locals were furious and staffing was inadequate.

Under what title did Charles Kelly look after the monument before becoming its first superintendent in 1950?

He was troubled when the Atomic Energy Commission got the monument opened to mineral prospecting in the 1950s; in the end there was too little ore to mine.

Until it had its own staff, the monument was administered from which other park?

The CCC and WPA built a stone ranger cabin and the Sulphur Creek bridge; the first transferred ranger, Grant Clark, arrived in 1958.

Which paved highway, built through the Fremont River canyon in 1962, sent visitor numbers soaring?

It replaced the narrow Capitol Gorge wagon road, which washed out constantly and is now for walkers only; visits hit 146,598 by 1967.

The Paiute who later moved in called the old stone granaries 'moki huts'. What did they think they were?

The Numic-speaking Paiute arrived long after the farmers left; 'moki' was their word for the little people.

The Fremont culture is named after a river that is itself named for which explorer?

Noel Morss coined the culture's name in his 1931 book on the Fremont River; the people lived across the region from about AD 1 to 1300.

Which member of John Wesley Powell's expedition crossed the park's great fold in 1872?

The geographer was Powell's brother-in-law; geologist Clarence Dutton later spent summers studying the area but never explored the fold in depth.

Mormon settlers founded the village at the heart of the park in 1880 under what original name?

It became Fruita around 1902–04, was called 'the Eden of Wayne County' for its orchards, and was bought out by the Park Service in 1955.

What can visitors do in Fruita's historic orchards from early March to mid-October?

Cherries, apricots, peaches, pears and apples all ripen in turn; the Park Service tends the trees as a 'historic landscape', pruning, irrigating and replanting them.

How many fruit trees does the Park Service maintain at Fruita?

By 1920 the flood plain supported no more than ten families at a time; today only the schoolhouse and the Gifford house and barn survive among the trees.

The one-room Fruita schoolhouse, opened in 1896, was also used for what?

Pupils mostly learned reading, writing and arithmetic; the Park Service restored the building in 1966.

The arch above Grand Wash is named after which outlaw, said to have hidden nearby while on the run?

The arch sits 400 feet above the Scenic Drive and is one of the few in the park system you can stand on top of.

The outlaw's real name was Robert LeRoy Parker. Where was he born in 1866?

He grew up on his parents' ranch near Circleville; after his first bank robbery in Telluride in 1889 his gang fled to the Robbers Roost in the southeast of the state.

Hickman Bridge, reached by a 2-mile round-trip trail, spans about how far?

It was carved from the Kayenta Formation and now stands over a dry wash; the CCC cut the trail after 1937.

Hickman Bridge is named after Joseph Hickman, who was what?

He organised the county-wide booster club in 1924, the year he was elected to the state legislature.

Cathedral Valley, in the park's remote north, was named in 1945 by whom?

Its sandstone monoliths reminded early explorers of Gothic cathedrals with fluted walls and pinnacles; Frémont's expedition had passed through in 1853.

The Temple of the Sun in Cathedral Valley towers how far above the surrounding desert?

The freestanding monolith of Entrada Sandstone stands a third of a mile from the Temple of the Moon, 12.5 miles from the visitor center.

Which unpaved route leads to the Temples of the Sun and Moon?

The Notom-Bullfrog Road runs down the east side of the fold, and the Burr Trail comes in from Boulder through Grand Staircase–Escalante.

The Scenic Drive through the middle of the park leads to which famous landmark?

The 7.9-mile paved road runs from the visitor center about 2 miles into Capitol Gorge.

The Halls Creek Narrows, the park's longest strenuous hike, runs about how far?

It is usually done as a two- or three-day camping trip; Cassidy Arch is a steep 3.5-mile round trip and Hickman Bridge just 2 miles.

The first rappel on the popular Cassidy Arch canyoneering route drops how far, right beneath the arch?

The route has eight rappels in about 2.3 miles and takes 2.5 to 4.5 hours; every canyoneering route needs its own free day permit.

What was the first mineral claim staked in the area, in 1904?

The Oyler Mine in Grand Wash produced ore; settlers also burned local limestone in kilns that still stand near Sulphur Creek and the campground.

Which town about 11 miles west of the visitor center is the park's gateway?

With fewer than 300 people, it was originally called Youngtown and is thought to be named for a Wyoming legislator who raised cowboy cavalry for the Spanish–American War.

In April 2015 the International Dark-Sky Association recognised the park at which level?

Its remote location and minimal artificial lighting earned the top tier.

The Kaibab Limestone exposed in the park is the same rock that does what elsewhere?

It was left by a deepening Permian sea; only the White Rim member of the older Cutler Formation is exposed in the park.

Which formation in the park was built from logs, mud and wind-blown volcanic ash?

The Moenkopi is the reddish-brown Triassic siltstone; the Chinle above it is the same unit that holds the Petrified Forest's logs in Arizona.

The park's white domes are made of which sandstone, laid down as fossilised desert dunes?

It is the youngest of the three Glen Canyon Group formations, above the Wingate dunes and the stream-laid Kayenta beds.

How many plant species have been recorded in the park, over 40 of them rare or endemic?

The range of elevations along the fold, from desert washes to Thousand Lake Mountain, gives it that variety.

How many campsites does the main Fruita campground have?

There are no water, electrical or sewer hookups; two free primitive camping areas exist elsewhere in the park.

Where is bicycling permitted in the park?

Horseback riding, canyoneering and rock climbing are also allowed; backcountry trips need a free permit.

How much did the local civic club raise in 1933 to hire a Salt Lake City photographer?

J. E. Broaddus then travelled and lectured on the area for years, which helped persuade federal investigators.

Roughly how old is the Waterpocket Fold at the heart of Capitol Reef?

The warp was probably caused by the same plate collision that raised the Rocky Mountains.

What crop pairing did the Fremont people irrigate beside the river around the year 1000?

They stored the grain in stone granaries built partly from the black basalt boulders that litter the area.

What most likely caused the Fremont to abandon their settlements in the 13th century?

All the Native American cultures in the region underwent sudden change at that time.

Which geologist spent several summers studying the area after Powell's 1872 survey?

None of these early expeditions explored the Waterpocket Fold in much depth.

Of the three Mormon settlements founded in the Fremont River valley in the 1880s, which one died out entirely?

Fruita prospered and Caineville barely survived; lime kilns from the era still stand in Sulphur Creek.

What was the name of the uranium working in Grand Wash that followed the 1904 claim?

In the 1950s the Atomic Energy Commission pushed to open the monument to prospecting, but there was too little ore to be worth it.

How many visitors came to Capitol Reef in 1958, the year Ranger Grant Clark arrived and Kelly retired?

By 1967, after State Route 24 was paved, the figure had risen to 146,598.

Under which 1960s programme did Capitol Reef get a 53-site campground and a 1966 visitor centre?

NPS areas nationwide received new facilities to cope with booming visitor numbers.

Which sandstone in the park was formed from dunes on the shore of an ancient sea, below the Kayenta?

Together with the Kayenta and Navajo formations it makes up the Triassic Glen Canyon Group.

Roughly how thick is the stack of sedimentary rock exposed in the Capitol Reef area?

Those layers span nearly 200 million years, from Permian rocks about 270 million years old to Cretaceous ones around 80 million.

Rock layers on the west side of the fold sit how much higher than the same layers on the east?

That is why older rocks crop out on the western side of the fold and younger ones on the east.

Small earthquakes centred beneath the fold in which year hinted at a hidden basement fault?

Geologists suspect the fold formed when Laramide compression reactivated a fault buried in Precambrian rocks far below any exposed layer.

Which Triassic member caps the Egyptian Temple near the park's west entrance?

The white to yellowish-grey sandstone was laid down in broad channels cut into the Moenkopi and vanishes entirely further east.

What do geologists call the Sahara-like sand sea that left the park's white domes?

Its dunes piled 800 to 1,100 feet deep here and reached 2,000 feet in what is now Zion.

Swelling clays in the Bentonite Hills dry into a crumbly surface that looks like what?

The smectite-rich Brushy Basin Member swells when wet, which makes the hills treacherous to drive after rain.

Dinosaur bones are abundant in the Brushy Basin Member of which formation?

The bones are usually scattered, but nearly complete skeletons have come out of its lake-floor and flood-plain clays in Utah and Colorado.

The Entrada Sandstone of the park's northern monoliths also forms the 'goblins' of which state park?

Jointing in the same rock produces monoliths here, hoodoos there, and the arches of Arches National Park.

Which ancient lake left the Flagstaff Limestone and Green River Formation in the area?

It filled a basin between mountains from about 58 to 35 million years ago; elsewhere its deposits are over 9,000 feet thick.

Despite the desert climate, what has done most of the carving of the park's landscape?

Gravity shapes the cliff lines through rockfalls and creep, while wind plays only a minor role.

Which river, named during the 1872 Powell survey, was the last in the lower 48 to be identified?

The same overland trip crossed the fold on its way to a boat cached at a river mouth.

A free-roaming herd of about 350 of which animal lives in the Henry Mountains east of the park?

The herd descends from 18 animals trucked in from Yellowstone in 1941 and is one of only three genetically pure wild herds on US public land.

Thousand Lake Mountain is covered in boulders and Boulder Mountain in lakes. The likeliest reason?

The two peaks flank Rabbit Valley on the park's western side and feed the Fremont River with snowmelt.

Boulder Mountain, west of the park, makes up half of which plateau?

Its nearly flat top covers about 70 square miles and is called the highest timbered plateau in North America.

The Fremont River joins Muddy Creek near Hanksville to form which river?

The Fremont rises at Johnson Valley Reservoir near Fish Lake and runs 95 miles before the two streams meet.

Which clean Grand Canyon stream did Powell name as a contrast to the silty river below Hanksville?

The Dirty Devil and its tributaries still dump about 150,000 tons of salt into the Colorado every year.

The 6.25-mile Sulphur Creek canyoneering route starts near which trailhead?

It finishes at the visitor centre and passes some of the oldest exposed rock in the park along the way.

Who led the Mormon group that founded the settlement at Fruita in 1880?

Though now a ghost town, it still houses the Park Service's employee residences and serves as the park's administrative heart.

Fruita was the setting for which 1970 Western directed by Al Adamson?

The low-budget film starred Robert Dix, Scott Brady and John Carradine, with the location revealed on the DVD commentary.

Who was the first teacher at the Fruita schoolhouse?

Her father had donated the land in 1892; the building kept a dirt roof for over a decade and stopped being a school in 1941.

What is the oldest surviving building in Fruita, dating from 1895?

The Fruita Rural Historic District covers a farming settlement active from 1895 to 1947 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 1940 ranger station the CCC built at Fruita is in which architectural style?

It was built for what was then a national monument; the visitor centre came a generation later.

What kind of dwelling did most Fremont families live in?

Villages typically held two to a dozen of them, with only a few occupied at any one time.

Before taking its present name in 1885, Hanksville went by the name of its surrounding area. What?

Named for early settler Ebenezer Hanks, the town did not get electricity until 1960 or incorporate until 1999.

Which simulated-planet habitat stands 7 miles northwest of Hanksville?

The Mars Society picked the spot for its otherworldly terrain; the BLM's Henry Mountains field station is also in town.

Charlie Siringo wrote that the Wild Bunch used twenty-dollar gold pieces at Robbers Roost as what?

Lawmen never found the hideout; only five women are known to have been allowed inside, among them Etta Place.

Loa, the Wayne County seat, takes its name from what?

A Mormon missionary back from the islands chose the name; the post office has operated since 1879.

Thurber renamed itself Bicknell in 1916 in exchange for what?

Rhode Island's Thomas Bicknell had offered the books to any Utah town that took his name; Grayson became Blanding, after his wife, and the towns split the prize.

Wayne County, home of the park, was carved out of which county in 1892?

Settlers pushed for the split mainly because the old county seat was so hard to reach; the boundaries have never changed since.

Fossil trackways of amphibians and reptiles mark which Moenkopi member, named for a local town?

Its chocolate-coloured siltstone was a tidal flat; the beds also hold ripple marks, mudcracks and casts of rock salt.

What distinction does the 163-mile highway through the park, SR-24, hold?

It runs from Salina to Interstate 70 near Green River, and part of it is signed as the Capitol Reef Scenic Byway.

Which narrow ridge with no guardrails or shoulders does Scenic Byway 12 cross?

The 123-mile All-American Road ends at SR-24 five miles west of the park.

Boulder, at the western end of the Burr Trail, did not get electric power until which year?

The town was cut off from its neighbours until the Civilian Conservation Corps built a road in from Escalante.

Which NPS unit adjoins the southern end of the park around Lake Powell?

At 1.25 million acres it dwarfs the park and was set up for recreation as much as preservation, with five marinas and two airports.

The Charles Hall boat linking Bullfrog and Halls Crossing is Utah's only what?

It was first called the John Atlantic Burr Toll Ferry and has been idled by low water in Lake Powell.

Senator Frank Moss, whose bill created the park, lost his seat in 1976 to whom?

The challenger's jab was 'What do you call a senator who's served 18 years? You call him home.' Moss remains Utah's last Democratic senator.

The congressman who carried the 1971 House park bill was a cousin of which LDS Church president?

K. Gunn McKay, a Democrat with ten children, later secured funding for Capitol Reef, Arches, Zion and Glen Canyon.

Unlike their Ancestral Puebloan neighbours, what did Fremont people generally wear on their feet?

Archaeologist Dean Snow calls them part-time farmers who never fully gave up hunting and gathering.

Utah's largest Fremont site, now a state park, was discovered during construction of what?

Thousands of artefacts from the Clear Creek Canyon village are displayed at the museum, which sits right beside the highway.

After a 2013 rockfall closed the Hickman Bridge trail, crews from which parks helped reroute it?

The debris came down on 23 March and the realigned trail reopened that November.

The Cassidy Arch Trail climbs roughly how much in under two miles?

The rocky Grand Wash Road to the trailhead is prone to flash floods.

Dixie National Forest, southwest of the park, takes its name from what?

At almost two million acres it is Utah's largest national forest, reaching up to Bluebell Knoll on Boulder Mountain.

Which giant aspen clone grows in Fishlake National Forest's Fremont River Ranger District?

By some estimates it is the heaviest organism on Earth at 13 million pounds across 106 acres.

In 1889 Native water rights to Fish Lake were sold for nine horses, flour, one steer and what else?

The buyer was the Fremont Irrigation Company; President McKinley created a forest reserve around the lake ten years later.

Which strenuous 4.5-mile round trip in the park's south ends at a natural bridge?

The route gives views of the fold and of the canyon that shares the bridge's name.

Which 1999 comedy used the Entrada 'goblins' near Hanksville as an alien planet?

The eroded dunes inspired the film's rock monsters; City Slickers II and John Carter also shot nearby.

Before taking charge of Capitol Reef, Charles Kelly made his living in Salt Lake City as what?

He had learned to set type as a boy for his father's religious tracts, and sold his share of the Western Printing Company in 1940.

What did Charles Kelly stumble on in the Salt Desert in 1929, launching his history career?

He had gone out looking for subjects to paint; his friendship with artist Charles M. Russell fed the interest.

Which banded, gypsum-rich formation forms the 'flatirons' on the fold's eastern rampart?

It was laid down in a periodically flooded graben and has been stripped from the crest of the fold.

Studying the Henry Mountains, G. K. Gilbert coined which term for a blister-like intrusion?

The range's near-horizontal strata are visibly bent around the intrusions, which still draws geologists today.