This remote Utah loop has gothic rock towers, crystal hills, and almost no cell service

Cathedral Valley’s solitude is the whole point

Capitol Reef National Park gets a fraction of the attention Zion and Bryce Canyon collect, and Cathedral Valley gets a fraction of Capitol Reef’s. That gap is exactly what makes it worth the drive.

A 58-mile loop of rough unpaved road cuts through the northern district of the park, passing monoliths so tall and so perfectly shaped that a park superintendent in 1945 thought they looked like Gothic cathedrals.

He wasn’t wrong. But the rocks are only part of what you’ll find out here.

The man who put Cathedral Valley on the map

Charles Kelly named this valley in 1945, the year he became the first superintendent of Capitol Reef National Monument.

He and explorer Frank Beckwith looked at the giant fluted sandstone towers and saw cathedrals, so that’s what they called them.

Kelly spent years pushing to get the valley’s geology formally protected, and the effort paid off.

On Jan. 20, 1969, President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation that expanded the monument’s boundaries sixfold, bringing Cathedral Valley inside.

Congress made it a national park on Dec. 18, 1971, locking in the final boundaries at about 243,921 acres.

160 million years packed into every tower

The monoliths are made of Entrada Sandstone, laid down roughly 160 million years ago on ancient tidal flats during the Jurassic period.

The same rock builds the arches at Arches National Park and the hoodoos at Goblin Valley.

Out here, water worked its way into fractures over millions of years, slowly carving the sandstone into freestanding towers.

On some of them, a harder layer of greenish-gray Curtis Formation sandstone sits on top like a cap, slowing erosion. Where that cap has worn away, the softer rock below erodes into pointed, steeple-shaped peaks.

Stand at the base of a 400-foot wall of glowing sandstone

The Temple of the Sun is the one formation that stops people mid-sentence.

It rises more than 400 feet straight off the desert floor, its buff-pink sandstone turning red and orange as the sun moves across the sky. The rock crumbles easily, so no debris piles up at the base.

The cliffs just go up, clean and sheer, from flat ground. You can walk right to the edge of it.

The National Park Service prohibits climbing, and drones aren’t allowed anywhere in the park, so you take it in on foot, from the ground, the way it was meant to be seen.

The Temple of the Moon sits just a third of a mile south

About a third of a mile south of the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Moon rises nearly 300 feet from the same flat desert. Like its neighbor, it’s solid Entrada Sandstone, unfractured and steep-sided.

Climbing is prohibited here too. The ground between the two formations is wide and open, so you can walk freely around both, get close to the bases, and look up at the scale of them from different angles.

Together, the two temples create one of the most recognizable desert scenes in the Southwest.

A mound of crystals that gleams like broken glass

Near the Temple of the Sun sits Glass Mountain, a 15-foot mound of selenite gypsum crystals that formed from evaporating seawater about 165 million years ago.

Over time, the low-density gypsum pushed upward through fractures in the surrounding rock, forming a dome. As the softer sandstone around it eroded away, the dome was exposed.

Now it sits in the open desert, and in direct sunlight, the crystals catch the light and glitter. You can walk the full perimeter of it.

Collecting rocks or minerals inside the national park is prohibited, so what you see stays there.

A 200-foot pit that swallowed itself whole

About nine miles down the loop road from Glass Mountain, a short spur road leads to a viewing area at the Gypsum Sinkhole. The pit is about 50 feet wide and drops 200 feet straight down.

It formed when groundwater dissolved an underground gypsum deposit until the ground above simply caved in. The rim is soft and unstable, so you stay back from the edge.

This sinkhole gives you a look at what happens when the dissolution process runs its course, which is also, slowly, what’s happening to Glass Mountain.

Layers of volcanic color baked into clay hills

About 8.5 miles into the loop from the southern start, the Bentonite Hills appear and the whole landscape shifts.

The rounded, layered hills run in bands of red, purple, pink, gray and green, the colors coming from volcanic ash and sediment that settled into Jurassic-era lakes about 160 million years ago.

These hills sit just outside the national park boundary on Bureau of Land Management land. Early morning and late afternoon pull the richest color out of them.

If rain hits while you’re on this stretch, turn around. Wet bentonite clay closes the road.

Three overlooks, three completely different views

The loop road passes three overlooks, each with a short walk from a roadside parking area. The Lower Cathedral Valley Overlook puts the Temples of the Sun and Moon below you, seen from above.

The Upper South Desert Overlook gives you a 360-degree view that takes in the Henry Mountains and the Waterpocket Fold.

The Upper Cathedral Valley Overlook looks out over the full line of monoliths known as the Cathedrals, with the Walls of Jericho, a series of dramatic cliff formations, running alongside them.

Each stop adds a different angle to what you’ve already seen on the ground.

Walk the ridge above the Cathedrals for a close look

The Cathedrals Trail runs 2.4 miles out and back, rated easy by the National Park Service.

It starts with a short, steep climb, then settles onto a low ridgeline that runs parallel to the line of monoliths in Upper Cathedral Valley.

At the end, a small hill opens into a broad panoramic view of the Cathedrals and the valley below. The trail keeps you close to the formations without demanding a long trek.

If you want to understand the scale of these towers, this is where you get it.

A 1920s cowboy cabin and some of the darkest skies in Utah

A flat walk from the loop road leads to the Morrell Cabin, a one-room log structure built in the 1920s on Thousand Lake Mountain.

Rancher Lesley Morrell moved it to Cathedral Valley around 1935 and used it as a line camp, kept stocked and open to anyone who needed shelter.

The National Park Service bought the property in 1970, and the cabin has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1999. You can peer through the windows at the preserved interior.

After dark, Capitol Reef’s status as a certified International Dark Sky Park means the stars here are something else entirely.

Know what the road asks of you before you leave

Cathedral Valley is not a place where help comes quickly. The loop requires a high-clearance vehicle, and four-wheel drive is often the smarter call.

Wet roads, especially through the Bentonite Hills, can become impassable. There is no cell service, no water, no gas and no services anywhere along the 58 miles.

Check road conditions at the Capitol Reef Visitor Center before you head out.

The free Cathedral Valley Campground sits roughly halfway through the loop with six primitive sites, picnic tables, fire rings and a pit toilet, but no water. Bring more of everything than you think you’ll need.

Drive the Cathedral Valley Loop at Capitol Reef National Park

The Cathedral Valley Loop begins off Highway 24, about 12 miles east of the Capitol Reef Visitor Center in Wayne County, Utah.

You can also access the loop from the north via Caineville Wash Road, which avoids a river crossing.

Capitol Reef charges an entrance fee, and passes are available at the visitor center or online through the official website.

The park stays open 24 hours a day year-round, but Cathedral Valley road access depends on current weather and conditions, so always check before you go.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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