Capitol Reef National Park
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| Capitol Reef | |
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Missing image LocMap_Capital_Reef_National_Park.png Image:LocMap_Capital_Reef_National_Park.png | |
| Designation | National Park |
| Location | Utah USA |
| Nearest City | Richfield, Utah |
| Coordinates | Template:Coor dm |
| Area | 241,904 acres 97,895 ha |
| Date of Establishment | December 18, 1971 |
| Visitation | 529,450 (2003) |
| Governing Body | National Park Service |
| IUCN category | II (National Park) |
Capitol Reef National Park is a United States National Park, in south-central Utah. It is 100 miles (160 km) long but fairly narrow. The park, established in 1971, preserves 378 mi˛ (979 km˛) and is open all year, although May through September are the most popular months.
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Geography
Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a wrinkle in the earth's crust that is 65 million years old. In this fold, newer and older layers of earth folded over each other in an S-shape. This wrinkle, probably caused by the same colliding continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains, has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose layers of rock and fossils. The park is filled with brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of stone and earth.
The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold.
The fold forms a north-to-south barrier that even today has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel, impassable ridges as "reefs," from which the park gets the second half of its name. The first paved road was constructed through the area in 1962. Today, Utah State Route 24 cuts through the park traveling east and west between Canyonlands National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, but few other paved roads invade the rugged landscape.
CapReefDome_sm.jpg
The park is filled with canyons, cliffs, towers, domes, and arches. The Fremont River has cut canyons through parts of the Waterpocket Fold, but most of the park is arid desert country. A scenic drive shows park visitors some of the highlights, but it runs only a few miles from the main highway. Hundreds of miles of trails and unpaved roads lead the more adventurous into the equally scenic backcountry.
History
Fremont culture Native Americans lived near the perennial Fremont River in the northern part of the Capitol Reef Waterpocket Fold around 1000 CE. They irrigated crops of lentils, maize, and squash and stored their grain in stone granaries (in part made from the numerous black basalt boulders that litter the area).
Many years after the Fremont left, Paiutes moved into the area. These Numic speaking people named the Fremont granaries moki huts and thought they were the homes of a race of tiny people or moki.
In 1872 Alan H. Thompson, a surveyor attached to United States Army Major John Wesely Powell's expedition, crossed the Waterpocket Fold while exploring the area. Geologist Clarence Dutton later spent several summers studying the area's geology.
Mormons settled the Fremont River valley in the 1880s and founded the town of Fruita. In addition to farming, lime was extracted from local limestone and uranium was extracted early in the 20th century. The community was later abandoned and later still some buildings were restored by the National Park Service. Kilns once used to produce lime can still be seen in Sulphur Creek and near the campgrounds on Scenic Drive.
The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold. The local word reef referred to any rocky barrier to travel.
In 1904 the first claim to a uranium mine in the area was staked. The resulting Olyer Mine in Grand Wash produced uranium ore.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a U.S. National Monument in 1937 that encompassed the Capitol Reef area. In 1971 the United States Congress upgraded the monument to national park status and greatly expanded its area to cover most of the Waterpocket Fold.
Utah State Route 24 was built along the Fremont River in 1962. It replaced a narrow wagon road about 10 miles (16 km) to the south that frequently washed out. The old road has since only been open to foot traffic.
Geology
- Main article: Geology of the Capitol Reef area
The area including the park was once the edge of an ancient shallow sea that invaded the land in the Permian, creating the Cutler Formation. Only the sandstone of the youngest member of the Cutler Formation, the White Rim, is exposed in the park. The deepening sea left Carbonate deposits, forming the limestone of the Kaibab Formation, the same formation that rims the Grand Canyon to the southwest.
During the Triassic, streams deposited reddish-brown silt, which later became the siltstone of the Moenkopi Formation. Uplift and erosion followed. Conglomerate, itself followed by logs, sand, mud, and wind-transported volcanic ash, then formed the uranium-containing Chinle Formation.
The members of the Glen Canyon Group were all laid down in the middle to late Triassic during a time of increasing aridity. They include:
- Wingate Sandstone: Sand dunes on the shore of an ancient sea.
- Kayenta Formation: Thin-bedded layers of sand deposited by slow-moving streams in channels and across low plains.
- Navajo Sandstone: Huge fossilized sand dunes from a massive Sahara-like desert.
The San Rafael Group consists of four Triassic-era formations, from oldest to youngest:
- Carmel Formation: Gypsum, sand, and limey silt laid down in what may have been a graben that was periodically flooded by sea water.
- Entrada Sandstone: Sandstone from barrier islands/sand bars in a near-shore environment.
- Curtis Formation: Made from conglomerate, sandstone, and shale.
- Summerville Formation: Reddish-brown mud and white sand deposited in tidal flats.
Streams once again laid down mud and sand in their channels, on lakebeds, and in swampy plains, creating the Morrison Formation. Early in the Cretaceous, similar nonmarine sediments were laid down and became the Dakota Sandstone. Eventually, the Cretaceous Seaway covered the Dakota, depositing the Mancos Shale.
Only small remnants of the Mesaverde Group are found, capping a few mesas in the park's eastern section (see Geology of the Mesa Verde area).
Near the end of the Cretaceous period, a mountain-building event called the Laramide orogeny started to compact and uplift the region, forming the Rocky Mountains and creating monoclines such as the Waterpocket Fold in the park. Ten to fifteen million years ago, the entire region was uplifted much further by the creation of the Colorado Plateaus. Remarkably, this uplift was very even. Igneous activity in the form of volcanism and dike and sill intrusion also occurred during this time.
The drainage system in the area was rearranged and steepened, causing streams to downcut faster and sometimes change course. Wetter times during the ice ages of the Pleistocene increased the rate of erosion.
Visiting the park
The town nearest Capitol Reef is Torrey, Utah, which lies eight miles west of the visitor's center on Highway 24. Torrey is very small, but has several motels and restaurants. The park itself has a large campground, but it often fills by early afternoon during busy summer weekends. Overnight camping within the park, requires a permit from the rangers at the visitor's center.
References
- Geology of National Parks: Fifth Edition, Ann G. Harris, Esther Tuttle, Sherwood D., Tuttle (Iowa, Kendall/Hunt Publishing; 1997) ISBN 0-7872-5353-7
- Explore Ameria: National Parks, Reader's Digest Association, 1993
- Capitol Reef Official Map and Guide, National Park Service, 1989
External links
- Wikimedia Commons Collection
- Official site: Capitol Reef National Park (http://www.nps.gov/care/index.htm)
- Photos of Capitol Reef National Park - Terra Galleria (http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.capitol-reef.html)
- Photographic virtual tour of Capitol Reef National Park. (http://www.Untraveledroad.com/USA/Parks/CapitolReef.htm)
- Capitol Reef National Park (http://www.nationalparksgallery.com/parks/Capitol-Reef-National-Park) - National Parks Gallery
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