Last night I stayed in Boulder Utah at the Boulder Mountain Lodge. It's a really nice place in you're ever in the area. They just added a really nice little restaurant to the complex as well. I didn't get out until about 11 am, I was loading film again. It took me less time in the morning at the expense of staying up until about 1:30 to do the unloading. Anyway, I wasn't far from Capital Reef so it wasn't that big of a time hit.

On the way to Capital Reef, I continued down state route 24. The area between Bryce and route 95 to the east is easily one of the most scenic desert drives I have ever seen. It goes through a myriad of different desert types, each one incredibly beautiful. Everything from low desert to alpine mountain tops. It was a really scenic drive. Along the way I made a few stops, taking this picture of a wildflower at one of the higher elevation stops.

Before I got to Capital Reef Nation Park I really didn't know anything about. Prior to a few days ago I don't think I even ever heard of the place before. When I drove into the valley where it is located I was completely blown away. What an awesome place, way cooler that Bryce or Zion. Eastern Utah is definitely where it's at.

This place is located on the Colorado Plateau, a place where the air is the clearest of anywhere else in the lower 48. You can typically see for about 150 miles here. One this day it was so clear it was almost unreal. I could clearly see these far away mountain in great detail. And up above there were the coolest puffy white cloud formations, they type that makes for really interesting pictures. They were casting the coolest shadows across the valley floor. I got two (hopefully) really cool panoramic shots of the valley here.

Capital Reef itself is a huge winding gorge with a lot of smaller winding side gorges. The colors in this area are the brightest I have seen yet. The colors in Utah seem to be getting brighter as I move east. The walls of the gorge are steep sandstone, colored brick red, yellow, tan, brown, purple, and a bluish-greenish gray. There are piles of broken rocks near the bottom and tall columns of sandstone at the top. At some places along the road there are huge chunks of rock that have broken off. It made me a little bit nervous knowing that these canyon walls are still actively eroding and that at any time one more of these huge chunks of the canyon walls could come crashing down.

There is a narrow 9 mile paved road that goes through the gorge with a few smaller dirt roads leading into the smaller side gorges. A lot of these roads had some wonderful areas, but most of the really cool areas where a few hours away by hiking, including a small area of slot canyons. I had a long way to go to get to the next place so I stuck mainly to the roads. I got a few shots with one I think will really stand out. There was this tall wall of sandstone columns standing on top of a wider sloping hill of broken rocks and sand. About a third of the way down from the base of the columns, there was a short horizontal wall of sandstone blocks and behind the whole thing there were white puffy clouds. Altogether it looked like a fortress atop a high hill surrounded by a block wall fence. Really cool.

On the way I drove through some amazing desert. It really reminded me of Death Valley in many ways. There were large area of badlands (areas where surface erosion happens so fast that nothing can grow). On the way through, I stopped off at the Luna Mesa Cafe for something to eat. It was a really colorful little place. Picture a little desert cantina out of a movie with locals sitting around. It was good food and an interesting place to sit around and talk with some of the locals.

On the way out, I past through the area called Luna Mesa. It was a really unusual place. It's was shaped like the rest of the desert around it. Tall sandstone monuments surrounded by rolling, wind carved hills but it's color was that of the moon, completely gray. It was near sunset and with the long shadows being cast it really looked like the moon. At about the middle of the mesa there was this absolutely amazing sight, a tall gray stone monument surrounded by rolling gray badlands. I had to drive the car down a steep embankment to get there, but it was well worth it. It may just be the best picture I get from this area.

After that I drove a few hours to get to Natural Bridges National Monument, passing Glen Canyon on the way. The difference between a national park and a national monument by the way, is that the former requires an act of Congress to establish and the later can be declared by a President. 

Glen Canyon is (was) a series of small connected canyons. I say 'was' because most are now filled with the water that makes up lake Powell. When the dam was built to create lake Powell it took 17 years to fill Glen Canyon and in the process it filled so many side canyons that the shoreline now extends for about 2,200 miles, longer than the entire Pacific coast of the U.S. This was all along highway 95, an equally impressive drive as route 24 is.

I got to Natural Bridges quite late, so late that the small campground was already filled. There was no other place for 50+ miles so I just found a place to park for the night and car-camped again.