Wayne is full of scenery — not people

How can you go wrong with a national park, a piece of a national recreation area and some of the state's most spectacular scenery within your midst . . . and not a single traffic light blocking your view in all of Wayne County?

Near the western end of the county is Capitol Reef National Park, and on the very eastern end is a piece of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. In between are such sites as Factory Butte, Henry Mountains, Horseshoe Canyon and pieces of Fishlake and Dixie national forests.

What you know

Capitol Reef is, of course, the main attraction within the county, and for good reason. Among Utah's national parks, Capitol Reef is no less spectacular than Zion or Bryce but doesn't get the traffic they do.

Some suggest that's because many of the more intriguing sights are off the main highway — U.S. 24 — that runs through its midsection.

Some hidden sights away from the highway would be Glass Mountain, Temple of the Moon, Temple of the Sun and Cathedral Mountain, all located toward the northernmost tip of the park. To view these sights, however, requires travelers to leave the paved highway and take to a dirt road.

The park itself was formed by the bulging uplift of sandstone rock over eons of time that created a 100-mile-long strip of wrinkled land dubbed Waterpocket Fold.

The park is part of this natural sculpting of the land.

The trip most serious visitors like to take within the park is the 60-mile loop that starts 12 miles east of the visitors center, comes out at Caineville and then returns on U.S. 24 to the park. The first obstacle is dubbed the River Ford, which is a flowing river during spring runoff and after heavy showers, and can be impassable. Other times of the year it is passable.

The drive is 30 miles to Upper Cathedral Valley and 43 miles to Lower Cathedral Valley, where Temple of the Sun and Moon, and Glass Mountain are located.

Both Upper and Lower Cathedral Valleys are composed of monoliths, which are fine-grained sandstone deposits formed during the Jurassic period.

Glass Mountain is really a large mound of selenite crystals that take on the appearance of glass, especially from a distance on a bright, sunny day.

Also along the route is the Gypsum Sinkhole. Instead of groundwater being plugged, which eventually created Glass Mountain, groundwater dissolved the gypsum and created a large cavity nearly 50 feet in diameter and 200 feet deep.

Rising from the valley floor are two massive monoliths named Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon. The largest of the two, the Temple of the Sun, rises about 400 feet above a floor of rock and dune sand.