Dry wash trail through capital gorge

Early pioneers in the area etched their names on the canyon wall

This little cabin was home to a family of 10...the mother, father, and two youngest slept in the four-poster bed which took up half the cabin, the older girls slept in the wagon box, and the boys slept in little hollows in the cliff face...

Fruita School House--used until WWII

Petroglyphs

Thu, 7/30/09

Singletree Na Forest CG, near Torrey, UT: After filling the water tank up we drove in to Torrey and had breakfast at the Kiva Café there. Torrey is a cute little town with several historic buildings, several restaurants, and a really nice art gallery. After breakfast we drove through Capital Reef National Park. Rt. 24 runs right through the park. Again, it is a rugged, beautiful, but inhospitable place. The Mormons settled in a pretty little valley along the Fremont River around 1880. They planted several orchards (22 spread out over several miles) along this river valley. They grew apples, cherries, pears, peaches, and apricots as well as plums, mulberry, almond and walnut trees. The park still maintains the orchards (approximately 2700 trees) and when ripe you can go in and pick them. This little community was known as Fruita. Usually no more than 10 families lived here at any one time, and the last resident moved away in 1969. The little one-room school in this little community was used until WWII. We stopped at the Gifford farm which was part of the Fruita community. It’s now a museum and gift shop. We bought a couple of (small) homemade pies and enjoyed some homemade ice cream there. Left there and drove through the beautiful Capital Gorge—a very narrow road at the bottom of the gorge with shear canyon walls. At the end of the drive where it was too narrow for a road we got out and hiked up the dry wash where the canyon narrowed even more. Really pretty. Drove back to Torrey and had dinner at the Kiva Café again. Mike had steak and I had a 10 vegetable salad which was really good. Drove back to our camp site in the rain and wind. Temperature was 59 when we got back.