Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

From Arches we drove to Capitol Reef on scenic highway 24. The drive was especially beautiful since we were driving right around sunset. This gave us a good idea of what to expect the next morning and the scenery was already stunning. The next morning we drove into the park after staying at a very nice campsite not too far away. We took the only road through the park, stopping occasionally to wonder at the massive rock formations with huge and small boulders littered at their base. The colors of these rocks were truly stunning. On a single cliff wall, you can see red-brown, khaki, green, black and almost everything in between. We drove past onto a windy gravel road which took us inches from towering cliffs on both sides (thanks for the tip mom!) After the main road, we drove out of the park a little bit to do a 3.5 mile round trip hike to Chimney Rock. It was a strenuous hike, once again during 1PM. The hike brought us up 600 feet for a great view of the surrounding formations. This really gave us the senseof how massive the tectonic movements were – whole landscapes and mountains were angled upwards as if the world had tilted sideways. After taking in the scenery, we hiked back to our car and were off on our way to a campsite right outside of Bryce Canyon.