Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah preserves the scenic beauty of a section of the Colorado Plateau where the normally horizontal beds of sedimentary rock have been tilted to a steep angle. This creates a massive sandstone ridge (the Reef) with magnificent cliffs rising hundreds of meters above the verdant valley of the Fremont River. A portion of the huge ridge, or monocline, was made a national monument in 1937. In 1971 the area was enlarged to 241,904 acres to include a 20-mile section of the ridge, and designated a national park.