After leaving Arches and Canyonlands in the Moab area we headed towards Capitol Reef National Park. Following is our best tips for viewing Capitol Reef National Park with kids.
Capitol Reef, the site of a geologic monocline (wrinkle in the earth), is a beautiful, unique, and frankly hard to visit park. Situated in a remote part of central Utah, this park presents a public face that is very accessible even if the geologic aspects are not.
The history of Capitol Reef is really interesting and it is a pretty unique National Park, so it was well worth the stop. We entered the park from the east and did not spend the night here but rather visited on the day we left Moab and headed towards Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. As a result, we got a taste of the park but would like to return and spend some time outside the main area to see more of the monocline itself.
Capitol Reef National Park with Kids
Fruita
In the interest of time, we skipped the petroglyphs, schoolhouse (dating back to 1896), and Hickman Bridge and chose to instead head down the Scenic Drive and into the Capitol Gorge. Fruita, a pretty town site near the Visitor Center and just into the scenic drive, is the home of historic orchards. They apparently use the fruit from these trees and make them into fresh pies (!) which are sold in the Gifford house (read more about the history of this interesting town here.)
They vary the flavors, but we enjoyed the strawberry rhubarb and peach a lot! As each fruit crop comes into season in the orchards, visitors can pick their own ripe fruit to eat. Fruit consumed in the orchards is free but if you want to take fruit out of the orchards there is a fee. Unfortunately, there were no ripe fruits available during our visit, which makes me question whether the fruit in the pies is actually from the orchard, ha!
Scenic Drive
After leaving the house (and with a fresh helping of sugar), we set off down the Scenic Drive. The road is paved for 8 miles and has beautiful vistas of the buttes as far as the eye can see. The real treat, however, was where the paved road ends and the dirt road that leads to the Capitol Gorge begins.
There is a parking lot before you hit the dirt road where campers park and a pit toilet is available. Long or wide vehicles are not a good idea on the dirt road as you are essentially driving up the bottom of a river bed. The road is narrow with blind curves and quite dusty, but all around you are tall cliffs. This road, like the one to the Cascade River Pass in North Cascades National Park, is worth the trip even if you are not physically up to the hike once you get to the end of the road.
Capitol Gorge Trail
Once you arrive at the end of the dirt road, you will be greeted with a parking lot, another pit toilet, and a trail up that same (now narrower) river bed to two destinations. 
The first is a series of names inscribed on the canyon walls from Pioneers called the Pioneer Register. If you stop at this point you will have had a fun hike up the canyon and enjoyed the dirt road adventure to get there.
The second is the option to continue on to a part of the canyon where you begin a steep scramble up to a series of waterpockets or “tanks” high above the canyon. We made the choice to hike up to them, but in March they were bone dry.
You may want to ask if there is water in the tanks at the Visitor Center before heading up on this hike, as it was a hot, tiring, and a tricky hike up there. While it was neat to get up on top of the canyon wall it was disappointing to spend the energy getting up there and back to see another dry riverbed.
Following that, we returned out through the same route (look for “Golden Throne” rock on your way out).
We stopped at the visitor center to turn in our Junior Ranger booklets (look for “The Castle” visible by the visitor center), and then headed west out of the park.
Panorama Point
Before leaving (or as you enter if you are coming from the west) make sure you stop at Panorama Point to snap some beautiful pictures!
Highway 12
As an aside, you absolutely must take Highway 12 between Torrey and Bryce Canyon. There is one section that is not for the faint of heart, but there is a reason this is one of the most scenic roads in the US.
Some items we would like to return to Capitol Reef for are the Grand Wash, a slot canyon that is a one way hike, and the adventurous Notom-Bullfrog or Burr Trail Road. I’m not sure either of these drives would be a good choice with a rental car unless your insurance is good, but that simply means we need to prepare!
After our drive and hike in Capitol Reef we headed towards our next adventure – Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.
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