Fun fact: Fruit picking is not your typical national park adventure, but you might not want to miss if it you’re visiting Capitol Reef National Park in Utah! There are all kinds of special heirloom fruits to choose from, including cherries, plums, pears, peaches, and the Capitol Reef red apple.
Visitors can eat fruit for free from the 2,000 fruit trees in 19 orchards at the park, and they can bring fruit home for $2 a pound. About 24,000 pounds of fruit were harvested in 2023 by visitors.
The orchards were planted by Mormon pioneer families, in the area they once called Fruita. Today, National Park Service workers tend the orchards using the same historic methods those settlers once did, including irrigation, pruning, mowing, planting, mapping and grafting. The methods are called “heritage techniques.”
The park is currently undertaking a pilot project to reinvigorate the orchards through regrading and replanting. The NPS has already planted about 700 new trees, including 260 young peach trees, 140 cherry trees and 70 apple trees.
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