Cathedral Valley is located at the Northern part of Capitol Reef National Park. It is a true hidden gem in Capitol Reef National Park. Not many visitors venture into Cathedral Valley due to the super rough condition of the road and it is not as accessible. However, Cathedral Valley has its unique sandstone formation that cannot be seen anywhere else. Its primitive land formation is really something that worth a visit.
People usually go to Cathedral Valley by doing the Cathedral Valley Loop drive. This loop is around 70 miles long and can take up to 8 hours to complete. The starting point of this loop also requires people to drive through the river, which can be dangerous depending on the depth of the water. Since we were only interested on view points on the Northern part of the Cathedral Valley Loop, we decided to take a different route and only do half of the loop.
Instead of entering Cathedral Valley via UT24, we decided to start from UT72, which is on the west side of Cathedral Valley, then we will exit to UT24. By starting from UT72, we go through FR206 and FR022 forest service road. The road condition of FR206 was well graded gravel road, but when we get on FR022, the road started to get quite rough with uneven dirt road and large rocks everywhere. It was very sketchy because the road went up and down in rough condition, we were extremely anxious. Luckily, we made it to the entrance of Cathedral Valley of Capitol Reef National Park safely but there were still a lot of large rocks on the road.
Once we entered Cathedral Valley, the first stop is to head to Cathedral Valley Upper View Point. It was just few miles away from the entrance. As we made the turn to head to the view point, the road condition became super rough that we almost decided to back out. We had to be extremely careful on where to drive our car and align the wheels properly to a smoother surface. If there was another car coming from opposite direction, we wouldn't know what to do. Fortunately, we were able to make it to the view point parking lot safely.
As we headed back to the car, a red truck also came to the view point. We greeted them and they seemed at ease and was able to handle the rough road just fine. The next thing after the view point was to head towards the Cathedral Valley camp site and then drive down hill into the valley. As we approached the camp site, a white GMC truck showed up. We were surprised to see each other and waved at each other nicely.
The down hill from the camp site into the valley was another extremely rough road. The road was uneven with large rocks everywhere. At the same time, we had to go very slowly to make turns while going down hill. It probably took us 15 minutes just to get down into the valley. Once we are down in the valley, the road condition gets better. There were no more large rocks on the road and was mostly just sandy and washboard condition road.
The next place we visited was Gypsum Sinkhole. It was a large hole on the ground in the middle of nowhere. When we got there, there was no water in the hole. However, during the winter, the hole could be filled with water and the reflection of the water would look quite nice.
The next stop was Temple of the Sun and Moon. This was like 20 miles away from Gypsum Sinkhole. Driving on the washboard condition road was not comfortable at all. We were going at 15 miles per hour, but the car was still shaking like crazy. However, while driving in Cathedral Valley, we really enjoyed the view a lot and it was super quiet. We could see the color change among the sandstones. A clear horizontal line on the rock separating out white and pink color. It was really amazing how every rock has the same horizontal line separating the color.
After about an hour, we finally got to Temple of the Sun road. The first place we got to is Glass Mountain. Instead of mountain, it was more like a rock, or a small hill. The hill was formed with clear shining crystals. It was strange that this thing just appeared out of nowhere. While we were there, we also ran into another family with their lovely yellow Labrador.
From Class Mountain, we could see Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon. These were giant free sanding sandstone rocks soaring from the ground. It looks quite amazing from a distance. We were able to drive closer to the rock as well but it looked much better when you look at it from distance.
After seeing Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon, it was time to exit Cathedral Valley. As we head back on the road, we ran into the red truck that we encountered back at Cathedral Valley Upper View Point. They were really happy to see us too.
We continued to drive Eastwards toward UT24 for about an hour and finally reached Caineville. We were so relieved when the car hit the paved asphalt road. We had not been driving on such smooth road for a while. It has been a long journey in Cathedral Valley. We spent about 4 hours in Cathedral Valley, but it was totally worth it.
Cathedral Valley is definitely worth the visit and you won't encounter much crowd. We only ran into about 5 cars. The road condition was rough but 95% of the road is in okay condition for any SUV. There are few sandy spot, but you can choose your path wisely to drive around it. It is definitely doable for people entering from Caineville all the way to Gypsum Sinkhole. Heading uphill to Cathedral Valley Upper View Point may be rough for cars without AWD.
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