Navajo Dome Viewpoint

Navajo Dome Viewpoint is a roadside stop on Highway 24 where Navajo Dome rises above the cliffs to the northwest. It is a brief look at the Waterpocket Fold, not a walk to the summit. Keep the pale dome and the lower red ledges in one frame to show how the formation stands above the highway.

The nearby Capitol Dome is a different formation: a narrow sandstone fin that looks like a half-sphere when viewed from the side. Settlers thought its shape resembled the U.S. Capitol, giving the park its “Capitol” name. For the separate view of Capitol Dome rising over the Fremont River, use the Hickman Bridge parking lot or nearby pull-offs.

Here Highway 24 crosses the central axis of the Waterpocket Fold, a roughly 100-mile-long bend in the rock layers. Between about 75 and 35 million years ago, movement along a reactivated buried fault lifted the west side and bent the layers over it. Look past the separate domes and notice how the sandstone beds tilt across the landscape.