Capitol Reef & the San Rafael Swell

Central Utah is the state's least crowded red-rock country: Capitol Reef National Park and its historic orchards, the San Rafael Swell and Goblin Valley, Nine Mile Canyon's rock art and the high plateaus of Fishlake.

Capitol Reef National Park protects the Waterpocket Fold, a wrinkle in the earth's crust running nearly 100 miles through south-central Utah. The main visitor area is Fruita, a former pioneer settlement along the Fremont River where historic orchards still produce cherries, apricots, peaches and apples that visitors can pick in season, and the Gifford Homestead sells fruit pies. The Scenic Drive, Capitol Gorge and the hike to Hickman Bridge are the usual introduction. Torrey, just outside the park, has most of the lodging. North of the park, the San Rafael Swell is a large uplift of canyons and reefs crossed by Interstate 70. Goblin Valley State Park is filled with thousands of mushroom-shaped hoodoos that visitors can wander among, and nearby Little Wild Horse Canyon is one of the most accessible slot canyons in the state. Further north, Price is the hub of Castle Country, with the Prehistoric Museum's dinosaur and archaeology collections. Nine Mile Canyon, despite its name about 40 miles long, has thousands of petroglyphs and pictographs left by the Fremont people. Green River, on the interstate, is known for summer melons and the John Wesley Powell River History Museum. To the west, Fishlake National Forest rises to cool aspen forests around Fish Lake, where the Pando aspen grove, a single clonal organism with tens of thousands of trunks, is one of the largest living things known.