Camping and Dining near Capital Reef National Park

Thousand Lakes RV Park
Six miles from the west entrance to Capital Reef National Park and west of the town of Torrey is the Thousand Lakes RV Park. Due to the cooler temperature we wanted hook-ups to stay warm while exploring this national park, so we stayed here. At our check-in, we were met by very friendly, nice and helpful staff and immediately felt welcome. The RV Park itself offers 8 single room cabins for rent, several tent sites with privacy fences and 50+ RV spaces including 36 pull-throughs that include a cottonwood tree and a patch of grass. All the sites and cabins have a fire pit and a generous bundle of wood can be purchased at the store. Speaking of the store, it comes fully stocked with gifts and tons of items as well as a few essential groceries and beer. In addition, this Park offers free WIFI (speed is average), showers, two laundry facilities, a dump station, a heated pool in season, a large grassy play area near the pool that includes a nice swing set for the kids and a 4x4 vehicle that you can rent if you want to explore the many dirt roads in the area and national park. Lastly, antenna TV reception was surprisingly good here. You will receive all the network channels in analog and digital plus a few other stations like PBS and the BYU channels. All in all this is a nice park with plenty of amenities and a great location to Capital Reef National Park.

Rim Rock Patio Restaurant

As you drive to Capital Reef National Park past the town of Torrey, you’ll find the Rim Rock Patio Restaurant. This is the casual dinning cousin to the more formal Rim Rock Restaurant that is nearby. The fact that their sign advertised pizza was enough to lure us in. This restaurant has a cozy pub feel…you’ve got a big screen TV, back patio for outdoor dinner with awesome views of the red rock cliffs in Capital Reef NP, a full selection of draught and bottled beers (Brad really enjoyed his pint of Polygamy Porter), and a nice selection of sandwiches and of course pizzas….what more do you need. We were told that all the pizza ingredients were organic and the beef for the BBQ sandwiches were smoked on-site. After not having pizza for a while, we immediately gravitated to pizza and ordered a large. We also ordered a family size mixed green salad to share. The salad was more than enough for two and very fresh. It included a spring mix of greens, and sliced mushrooms and tomatoes with several homemade dressings from which to choose. The salad and dressings were great and the prefect appetizer to our pizza. Our pizza overall was pretty good especially for a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. We found the toppings to be very fresh and generous but the crust just didn’t match the quality of the other ingredients. We enjoyed the food (and the leftovers) and happy that our pizza craving was satisfied.