Waterpocket Fold

The Waterpocket Fold is a wrinkle in the Earth's crust nearly 160 kilometres long, running south-southeast across south-central Utah from the desert near Fruita to the Colorado River at Lake Powell. Geologists call it a monocline: a single step-like bend where the rock layers on the west side have been lifted more than 7,000 feet above the same layers on the east. It formed between 50 and 70 million years ago, when the Laramide orogeny, the mountain-building episode that raised the Rockies, reactivated an old fault buried far below, and the sandstones above it draped over the rising block like a tablecloth over a step.

Erosion has since carved that drape into a long, jagged wall of domes, fins, cliffs and narrow canyons, striped in white, cream, red and purple sandstone and shale. The white Navajo Sandstone domes along the crest reminded early settlers of the Capitol in Washington, and the whole barrier of rock, hard to cross as an ocean reef, gave its name to Capitol Reef National Park, which the fold defines. The fold's own name comes from the countless small basins, the waterpockets, that rain and runoff have hollowed out of the tilted sandstone and that hold water long after a storm. Alongside the main escarpment run long strike valleys, where softer layers have worn away between harder ridges.

The best way to understand the shape of it is from above or alongside. Utah Highway 24 cuts through the fold east of Fruita. The Notom-Bullfrog Road follows the eastern foot of the escarpment south, paved for its first 15 miles, while the Burr Trail Road climbs across the fold in a set of switchbacks that gain about 800 feet in half a mile. From the Burr Trail a walk of around seven miles return, or a high-clearance road, leads to the Strike Valley Overlook, where the tilted layers run to the horizon in both directions.

Getting there

The fold is in remote country. The Capitol Reef visitor center at Fruita, on Utah Highway 24, is the usual starting point; the village of Torrey, about 11 miles to the west, has the nearest services. The nearest airport is Page Municipal (PGA) in Arizona, about 125 km away in a straight line but much further by road; Cedar City is roughly 175 km away. The full loop around the fold by the Notom-Bullfrog Road, Burr Trail and Highway 24 is about 124 miles and takes four to six hours; unpaved sections can become impassable after rain or snow, so check road conditions with the park before setting out.