Capitol Reef National Park and the Grand Staircase

Driving the Scenic Byway 12 Between Arches National Park and Bryce National Park sits Capitol Reef National Park and an area know as the Grand Staircase. This stands as one the most memorable days driving this trip. A giant buckle in the Earth's crust stretches across south central Utah creating the area known as Capitol Reef. This vast warping of rock is called a water pocket fold. Erosion has created colorful cliffs, massive domes and graceful arches. This area is also home to the Fremont River giving a diversity of land, flora and fauna. It is remarkable the diversity in this area!

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, is unique in that it is the first monument run by the Bureau of Land Management, rather than the National Park Service. The monument has a huge variety of formations, features, and world-class paleontological sites. The Grand Staircase is a geological formation of multicolored cliffs, plateaus, mesas, buttes, pinnacles, and canyons.

Driving through this area while very beautiful, was stressful for me, Gary finding me leaning in as we skirted the edge of "the Hogsback, climbing to over 9600 ft in elevation across the rim with only the width of the two lanes in places and steep 14% grades with sharp S curves both up and down the mountains. But the rewards were worth it, vistas that were some of the best we have ever seen, including snow capped forested mountains, lush green valleys with a winding river that was home hundreds of years past to a people that documented their existence on the walls of the canyons. The petroglyphs shown remind me of the stick family symbols we see on the family vehicles driving down the highway.