Southwest 2025-8: Utah—Hanksville, Factory Butte, Capitol Reef National Park

 May 16-18, 2025

    We left Green River, Utah for the second time this trip and drove south to Hanksville, which we'd bypassed the first time around.

Utah's mountains, canyons, formations never cease to amaze.

    Hanksville was a supply post for Butch Cassidy, whose Robbers Roost Hideout was nearby, and for uranium miners, who descended on the Colorado Plateau after WWII. But we were there to see Hollow Mountain, the gas station convenience cave opened in 1984 after 2.5 tons of dynamite blasted a cavern in the mountain.

Hollow Mountain convenience cave, Hanksville UT.

It's very cool inside & has all your camping needs & of course things you didn't know you needed. 

    

    From Hanksville, we turned west toward Capitol Reef National Park and Torrey.

Driving west from Hanksville.

Domes layered in color.  

    A half hour out of Hanksville, a dirt road led right. What should we do? Duh! Take it, of course! Soon we were parked overlooking a 900-foot deep, 2,600-acre depression known as Swing Arm City, a designated off-road site in Factory Butte BLM Recreation Area. We watched kids jump their dirt bikes over the edge and tiny cars far below drive about the bottom of the depression.

Trails crisscross through free ride (no trails), 900' deep, 2,600 acre Swing Arm City, aka Caineville, in the Factory Butte area. 

Factory Butte, sandstone atop shale, 6,302 feet high.

Parked above Swing Arm City, another perfect place.

Factory Butte.

Factory Butte & our handsome Uncle Robert, aka Conchita, our 2019 Dodge Promaster 1500 VanWorks conversion.

Yikes—a giant snake slithering by?

    We concluded reluctantly that boondocking at Factory Butte was not feasible, as it was still early and the wind was beginning to blow, so after 3 hours we got back on the road.

Another mode of highway transport.

Heading toward Torrey.

Boundary to Capitol Reef west of Torrey.

Southwest geology is awe-inspiring no matter where you are & what direction you look.

    The Waterpocket Fold, a nearly 100-mile-long wrinkle in the earth, gives Capitol Reef National Park its narrow elongated shape. The park's name, however, comes from the white domes said to resemble capitol building domes and rocky cliffs resembling ocean reefs. 

Capitol Reef National Park & Waterpocket Fold.

Capitol Reef's striped formations are layers of sedimentary rock, resulting from swamps, oceans, rivers, & deserts, that began to  form over 270 million years ago.

After the layering, the Waterpocket Fold tilted the whole thing on its side.

    Most desert Southwest regions uplifted horizontally, more or less evenly. But plate movement on a fault that caused the Waterpocket Fold lifted the western side higher than the eastern side. For example, Torrey to the west of the fold is at 6,800 feet, while Hanksville to the east is at 4,300 feet.

Just amazing how some rocks are still standing.

 

Our welcoming committee.

    Though we arrived late in Torrey, we found the perfect site, a flat spot with a rustic wind break at Sand Creek Campground.

Handsome Sand Creek Campground camper after his shower. 

Geography & sky—soul filling.

After a brief stop at Capitol Reef Visitor Center, we took Scenic Drive through Fruita then turned after a couple of miles onto dirt E Grand Wash Rd.

E Grand Wash Rd.

Gates cover shafts of former Oyler Uranium Mine.

    Orignally named the Nightingale Claim, the Oyler uranium/radium mine operated from 1901 into the 1950s.

Above & below: Arches in-embryo, created by sandstone eroding. If a crack forms at the upper back of an arch, the interior will fall away leaving a freestanding arch.

We did not see the famous Cassidy Arch, named for Butch Cassidy, who is rumored to have hid in the surrounding slot canyons. 

A break in the canyon walls.

    Back on Hwy 24, we stopped to walk along one of the two boardwalk petroglyph viewing areas.

Fremont Culture Petroglyphs accessible via boardwalk.

Close-up of above.

Beautiful rock faces...

...& fallen rocks.

Our boondocking site on BLM land across Hwy 24 from Capitol Reef. We had to prove that our 2-wheel drive Promaster could make it up a steep hill to the highest accessible point.

 

A squint & a smile or a smile & a squint?

   We spent the evening & next morning just watching the weather change. 

Llamas & their trainer were just arriving for work when we left Broken Spur Steakhouse in Torrey after breakfast the next morning.

    We turned south on another favorite road, Hwy 12, and headed to another favorite town, Boulder, to continue our meandering through Utah from Green River to Kanab.

Our entire Southwest 2025 trip: 6.5 weeks/6,274 mi.

Southwest 2025: 6-1/2 weeks. 6,273.5 miles. (1) Visalia CA-Green River UT. (2) Green River-Ship Rock NM. (3) Ship Rock-Aldo Leopold Wilderness. (4) Leopold-Carrizozo. (5) Carrizozo-Taos. (6) Taos-Grand Villa CO. (7) Grand Villa-Green River UT. (8) Green River-Kanab. (9) Kanab-Kanab. (10) Kanab-Bridgeport CA. (11) Bridgeport-Visalia.

Coming up: Boulder & Burr Trail Road.

Coming up: Torrey to Boulder and the Burr Trail.