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Show Capitol Reef National Park A Must for Area Vacationers f ' r i . M ' 1" J '" I"1- r -.- ,.--,- - ; ' v.i(ikiie and winter of 1853-54, explored the region north of the Colorado River. By 1866, Mormon settlers had begun to occupy land to the west of Capitol Reef, Their knowledge of Capitol , Reef no doubt increased when captain James Andrus of St. George, Utah, led a posse into the Capitol Reef area looking for Indian raiders. The first white pioneer famlies established homes along the Fremont River near Capitol Reef in the 1880s. Long droughts, frequent flooding, wind, cold, insects and lonely isolation would severely test the hardy Mormon colonists. View along icenlc drive ia Capitol Reef National Park. Incredibly rugged features of unusaal park display some of the most interesting geology in the world. Capitol Reef National Park headquarters, although actually I located in Wayne County, is easily accessible from Garfield County via the Boulder Mountain road, in its final stage of completion and suitable for travel for all vehicles. - The travelers can save more than 50 miles of travel and see some of the finest and most spectacular scenery on earth by traveling this new route connecting Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Park. The park is also accessible from The Burr Trail out of Boulder. The park is also accessible from the Burr Trail, an improved dirt road out of Boulder. It is suitable for passenger vehicles in good weather but not recommended for those with trailers. It traverses the park's incredible "Waterpocket Fold" through some of the world's most remarkable scenery and leads to Bullfrog Marina at Lake Powell. The Navajo Indians called the park the "Land of the Sleeping Rainbow" a strange but beautiful country where colors of the rainbow 1 can be seen in the manv rock lavers. Today, 378 square mile Capitol Reef I National Park, one of Utah's five national parks, is located in the heart of "Canyon Country" on state highway U-24, about halfway between bet-ween canyonlands and Bryce Canyon national parks. Capitol Reef was so rugged and remote that it was left almost undisturbed un-disturbed by white settlers until the late 1800s. It was very much like an ocean reef around a tropical island very difficult and dangerous to cross. As a matter of fact, that's how Capitol Reef got its name. It, too was a barrier to travel and had large white sandstone domes that looked like the U.S. Capital in Washington, DC. The first white explorers found Paiute Indians hunting in the nearby mountains during summer months, and following game animals down to lower, warmer valleys during the winter. The Paiutes, however, were not the first inhabitants of Capitol Reef. Earlier, the Fremont Indians lived in rock shelters and farmed the river valleys from 800 A.D. to 1200 A.D. These early settlers of Capitol Reef left rock carvings and picture writing (petroglyphs) that are difficult to understand clearly. In the late 1700s, Father Escalante, a Spanish explorer, passed 50 miles west of Capitol Reef. Later, Colonel John C. Fremont, on his last western expedition in the fall |