Capitol Reef National Park, Southern Portion

Capitol Reef National Park has a long southern secton that follows the Waterpocket Fold and extends about 50 miless south of Highway 24. Most the road south is dirt and it cross in and out of the National Park boundry. At about 30 miles south the road intersects with the Burr Trail which cuts across the park and then enters the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. The road is well graded and we had no trouble with a crossover SUV. The only part that seemed a bit scary was the switchbacks up the mountain. The switchbacks are steep and narrow but there no clearance issues. There's spur that heads to viewpoint of the fold that was too rough for the crossover. One can walk the 2 miles up the spur but we chose to to skip it.

The return through Grand Staircase Escalante was aboslutely beautiful. We did this on Memorial Day and for the much of the trip we did not encouter anyone else which was glorious. Many parks are incredibly crowded on holidays but this drive was not crowded even on a holiday. The highlight was Long Canyon which is extremely scenic.

Our tour guide from Cathedral Valley who also does a tour of the souther section told us he thinks the two sections are equally good. While I throughly enjoyed the southern route, if you only have time to see one, I recommend a the northern section to Cathedral Valley. Capitol Reef and the surrounding areas is a a beautful and scenic park but it doesn take getting off the pavement to get the full expierence.