Day 15 of the Globe-trotting Travel Series is a fly-over of Capitol Reef National Park in Utah by Milosh Kitchovitch of Amazing Places on our Planet. His stunning drone footage is a wonderful escape from the tedium of quarantine and reminds us that our beautiful planet is dynamic and alive while we are hunkered down. He’s still producing new video–you can subscribe to his channel on YouTube.
Capitol Reef, with its amazing variety of desert scenery, is less popular than Zion, Arches, Bryce Canyon or Canyonlands National Parks, partially because some of its best vistas lie down miles of dirt roads. It is my favorite of the southern Utah parks, lying along the Waterpocket Fold, a 100 mile buckle in the earth’s surface between Thousand Lake Mountain and Lake Powell.
I love the grim gaunt edges of the rocks, the great bare backbone of the Earth, rough brows and heaved up shoulders, round ribs and knees of the world’s skeleton protruded in lonely places.
—Maynard Dixon, American Artist
Locations in the video: Sunset and Panorama Points overlooks (0:01, 1:10), Capitol Reef Scenic Drive (0:10), along Hartnet Road – Bentonite Hills (1:38), Lower South Desert Overlook(2:39), Upper Cathedral Valley Overlook (2:54), Temples of the Sun and the Moon (3:41), Pectols Pyramid (5:16), Hickman Bridge (5:32), Fruita (5:58), petroglyphs (6:13), Behunin Cabin (6:22), Strike Valley (6:30), Burr Trail Switchbacks (7:00), Strike Valley Overlook (7:18).