Capitol Reef National Park Visitor Center — Attraction in Four Corners States

Utah’s parks are beautiful and amazing - this review is not about the park itself but it’s visitors center! Had a pretty rude Interaction with a ranger here that rubbed me the wrong way the whole time we visited this park which sucks! We are long term campers and travelers - we don’t plan every part of our trips and rather show up to a place and stay for as long as we feel we want to. This year Fruita Campground went to a reservation system online for EVERY site. I see this is a trend in Utah’s parks and actually we were unable to stay in any National Park sites this whole trip to 5 parks (bummer!) But most places around the country have reservation systems but leave a handful of sites as “first come first serve”. It’s not the case here obviously but my issue was when the ranger at the visitors center told me that I kinda sighed with disappointment and just casually mentioned we hadn’t been able to get any walk-ins this whole trip even though our NEW guide book at listed Fruita as all walk-in and what a shame that was. Rather than being understanding or even just saying “yea I’m sorry that’s happened to you...” he jumped into a full fledged defense of how the online system is “so much easier for us rangers” and “we have enough to do around here than having to worry about the campgrounds” and “it’s better for us this way”. It came off extremely insensitive and just felt like the opposite of the National Park ethos! How dare we come into nature and have to worry about little things like fee envelopes at the campsite (which is managed by volunteer hosts not even the rangers!) It was really rude. Someone should explain to this young 20 something man that camping used to be a thing of exploring and wandering a loop and finding a spot to put your head down rather than planning every stop and reserving 6 months in advance on a smartphone. But I guess this is just another thing the internet has ruined.... at least we still...

TL/DR: Do the Scenic Drive. According to other people, the Cassidy Arch Trail is really great, but we unfortunately didn’t do it. Capitol Gorge and Hickman were cool, but not must-dos. Make sure to stop by the Cottonwood trees!

We visited Capitol Reef National Park on our drive from Arches/Canyonlands to Bryce Canyon. It was cool!

Get the America the Beautiful pass! It’s $80 and it gets you into every national park in the country for a year! Well worth it!

To bring: WATER!! (we each brought a 1.5 liter bottle, plus two 20 oz. water bottles - always better to have too much than too little), sunscreen, food (we each brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, as well as a protein bar), sunglasses and/or hat.

To wear in the summer: Close-toed trail running or hiking shoes, athletic wear, like leggings or shorts, and a t-shirt. There were so many people wearing sandals or flip flops with no traction. You really limit yourself when you don’t have proper footwear!

Here’s what we did: Scenic Drive - Took us about 15 minutes each way. Very nice that you can drive the park and see some nice views! Capitol Gorge - This took us 1.5 hours, but we went past the Tanks (little pools of water in the mountain - we saw tadpoles!) and there wasn’t really anything to see past the Tanks. If we had just turned around after the Tanks, it would’ve maybe taken us 45 minutes to an hour. Plenty of parking at the trailhead, as well as a bathroom with no running water. Hickman Bridge - Took us an hour. It was cool, but if you’ve been or are going to Arches, you’ll see better at Arches.

We saw that other people liked the Cassidy Arch Trail, and maybe we should’ve done that. There were some great views, but I think we could’ve just done the Scenic Drive...

Not very friendly staff! We visited Capitol Reef NP in March. When my husband and I arrived there about 12:30, 10-15 people were waiting outside of the center because it was closed for lunch hour.(I called earlier but couldn't get the info about lunch hour.) We waited for about 30 minutes. The door was opened at 1:00. We bought NP annual pass there. The male staff who sold the pass to us treated us with a not very welcoming attitude, no talk, no smile, etc. We asked him about nearby campsite info, and all he said was "Campsites are all full" "Need reservation 6 months prior" "I don't have any other campsite info". We couldn't get any info from him. We had lunch at a picnic area near Fruita Campground and tried to think about what we should do next. We decided to look around the campground even though the visitor center guy said "fully booked". When we entered there surprisingly quite a few sites were available. We met very a kind host lady, and she let us take one of the available sites. If we trusted him fully and didn't stop by the campground, we might have to leave Capitol Reef, and head to the next destination. Very...