Review
“Stephen Trimble has put together the guide you need to more fully appreciate Capitol Reef National Park in Utah…. Though the anthology is not a collection of where-to-go and what-to-see essays, it offers the grit from which Capitol Reef rose up. Not just the geology—though there's plenty there to ponder in awe—but also the human connections to this red-rock wonder.”
—National Parks Traveler
“The richness and variety of literature on the greater Capitol Reef region is astonishing, brought together here for the first time. Reading this collection animates the natural and cultural history of greater Capitol Reef. The writings left by the people who have lived in and passed through offer a window into the soul of a place.”
—Jedediah Rogers, author of Roads in the Wilderness: Conflict in Canyon Country
“When it comes to Capitol Reef, Trimble’s breadth of knowledge is surpassed only by his passion for the place, its people, and its grandeur. I can’t imagine a better guide through the geological beauty of the Waterpocket Fold nor through the stories of those who have known—and have sometimes been defeated by—the power of the place.”
—Jana Richman, author of Finding Stillness in a Noisy World
"Consider a subject in the hands of a gemcutter: any way you turn it, it will reflect light, depth, and a mysterious variegated understanding more comprehensive and more lasting than a single view can expect to illuminate. Stephen Trimble has assembled a marvelously faceted survey, as essential as boots on the trail, to exploring Capitol Reef National Park. Equal parts science, cultural anthropology (with its lessons in hope and hubris), history, eco-theology, and, if one counts the number of times the word “love” surfaces in these pages, part love letter, this volume leaves no stone unturned or topic in the card catalog unpopulated. But even while it is manifoldly knowledgeable, it also rather delightedly admits that much of the map is still blank, with unnamed windings and washes, chasms and canyons, and the multitude of shapes that stone can assume under the “creative impulse” of erosion—a reminder that this is not only a wilderness, but a changing one as well. From the sedimentary record of human occupation over time to the literal landscape with its “audacious geology,” and finally, to the omnipresent and disconcerting beauty of Capitol Reef, this collection will stir the mind and excite the heart. You’ll be grabbing your pack and boots before the last page settles and, like me, heading back to see all that I missed."
—Lynn Stegner, author of For All the Obvious Reasons
“The Capitol Reef Reader, Steve Trimble’s latest tour de force, is a red rock anthology that I couldn’t put down. Steve has woven a body of work as fascinating and gripping as Capitol Reef itself. And after immersing myself in the Reader I can’t help but believe all of us can embrace Steve’s optimistic call to preserve the authenticity of our West.”
—Mark Udall, US Senator, Colorado, 2009–2015
From the Author
Editing this anthology of the best writing about Utah's Capitol Reef National Park was a labor of love. I arrived in Capitol Reef in 1975 to work a season for the National Park Service as a ranger, knowing only a little. I was 24. I'd worked as a park ranger briefly at Arches and for a season in Colorado. I'd published my first little book for Park natural history associations. But I was a newcomer to all things Capitol Reef. This was a long time ago! When I first went out camping that summer, I was sleeping on top of picnic tables because I was afraid of scorpions.
I was hired as a seasonal, in part, to write and photograph for the park. I wrote and photographed a general interpretive book for the natural history association, emphasizing the backcountry. I wrote and took pictures for a trail guide--both publications long out of print, though if you've traveled in the canyon country for a long time, you might find copies of these artifacts from the past deep in the recesses of your bookshelves.
And when I write, I research, too. So, nearly 45 years ago, I began reading everything I could find about the park, and I've never stopped. I'm endlessly intrigued with the unending challenge of responding to this place in language, in capturing Capitol Reef in words.
So Capitol Reef turns out to have a surprisingly rich literature--and it just keeps going. It's alive. The editors of the Arches and Bryce Canyon volumes in this national park reader series are having a hard time finding this same wealth of writing. I think I've figured out the reason.
Capitol Reef turns out to be more passageway than barrier. Arches and Bryce perch by themselves in their spectacular locations, off the beaten path. Here, Native people used the permanent streams running through the Waterpocket Fold as home and as trails for 12,000 years, leaving behind cultural traces and stories. Explorers looked out from Boulder Mountain and then worked their way through the Fold along the streams or through the open draws of Cathedral Valley, journaling all the way. We go to these same pathways for our hikes.
The only road across central Utah came through Capitol Gorge for nearly a century and then the Fremont Canyon highway replaced it with another through route. This brought travelers--and there often were writers in those vehicles. Both residents and visiting writers cherished the village of Fruita and its big personalities. Oldtimers in Fruita self-published their nostalgic memories of both the pioneer Mormon settlers and the eccentric misfits who retired here in the forties.
All this makes for a lot of choices for the editor of a Capitol Reef anthology.
About the Author
Stephen Trimble began his writing and photography career as a park ranger, including a season at Capitol Reef National Park. His books include Bargaining for Eden, Lasting Light, and The Sagebrush Ocean.
