South Fruita Overlook

South Fruita Overlook is a spur viewpoint on the Cohab Canyon hike, above Fruita and facing the Waterpocket Fold. It gives you a wide look across the green valley to the tilted cliffs beyond. Take the detour if you want to see Fruita from above; this isn't a quick pullout beside Scenic Drive.

From the overlook, Fruita's green valley sits below layers of sandstone cliffs. The winding road through the valley gives the scene scale, so keep it low in a wide photo instead of filling the frame with cliff alone.

The Waterpocket Fold is a nearly 100-mile warp in the rock layers. A buried fault shifted the western side upward 50 to 70 million years ago, tilting the layers; the west side now stands more than 7,000 feet higher than the east. From here, those sloping layers rise behind Fruita.

Small depressions eroded by water in sandstone are called waterpockets. They gave the Fold its name, while ongoing erosion keeps cutting its tilted layers into cliffs, domes, canyons and arches.