A Good Week To Be Flexible

There is a kind of Capitol Reef day where the best plan is not the biggest plan. Late August will do that to you. It is still hot, afternoon weather can change fast, and the side roads do not always work with your schedule.

And that’s fine. Really. Capitol Reef has never needed a complicated plan to be worth the drive.

As of the park’s August 24 road update, the Scenic Drive is open to standard two-wheel-drive vehicles. Grand Wash Road and Capitol Gorge Road are closed. The Burr Trail is listed for standard two-wheel-drive vehicles, while the Notom-Bullfrog Road is high-clearance two-wheel-drive. In Cathedral Valley, Hartnet Road was reported impassable on August 20 and is not recommended, with several other roads listed as unknown.

So maybe this is not the week to force the far-off thing. Maybe this is the week to let the roads pick the day.

A road through Capitol Reef country. Photo by Wirestock Creators via Shutterstock.

Start With What Is Open

The Scenic Drive is still an easy place to start a good Capitol Reef day. It gives you the cliffs, the old Fruita country, the light on the Waterpocket Fold, and enough places to stop and look around without turning the day into a contest.

Highway 24 is doing its share too. You can still make a good loop of the Visitor Center, the Fremont River, the petroglyph panels, the old orchards, and whatever short walks fit the morning. We have written before about taking August in smaller bites, and we think this is the same idea with a little more road sense attached.

The park is fully open and open 24 hours a day. The Visitor Center is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and the Gifford House is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. That is enough structure for the scheduled part of the day. The rest can stay loose.

Fruita gives you a slower kind of Capitol Reef day. Photo by Vladimir Tretyakov.

Let Fruita Help

And if you need one more reason not to rush off toward the rough roads (well, the rougher roads), the Fruita orchards are still producing fruit.

The park’s August 25 orchard update lists apples in the Abie Clark orchard, including Yellow Bellflowers, Rome Beauties, and Jonathan apples. The Jackson orchard has Capitol Reef Red apples, remaining Ginger Gold apples, Flemish Beauty pears, Oregon Spur apples, Empire apples, and Golden Yellow Delicious apples. The Mott orchard is open for Ginger Gold apples. That is a bunch of apples. Most listed fruit is $2.00 per pound, and the Jackson orchard also lists apples at $30 for a 50-pound bushel. Harvest timing changes with weather and ripeness, of course, because fruit is not a vending machine.

If you are counting on picking, call the park’s recorded line first: 435-425-3791, then press 5 for fruit and orchard information. For roads, press 1, then 4. The website is useful, but the park says the phone line has the most current road information.

No Shame In The Easy Day

There is no shame in choosing the easy day. In fact, late August almost rewards it. Take the Scenic Drive. Stop in Fruita. Look at the cliffs longer than you planned. Call about fruit. Check the road line before you point a vehicle at dirt.

And if the rougher roads have to wait, let them wait. Capitol Reef will not run off.