Temples of the Sun and Moon

The Temples of the Sun and Moon are two large, freestanding Entrada Sandstone monoliths rising from the open floor of Lower Cathedral Valley. The Temple of the Sun is the taller, sharper tower; the Temple of the Moon stands nearby, and seeing them together is the payoff. This is a remote sightseeing stop that deserves a place in a planned Cathedral Valley outing, not a quick detour.

From the Highway 24 junction, the Temple of the Moon is 17.1 miles up Cathedral Road. The full Cathedral Valley loop is 57.6 miles and usually takes six to eight hours. High clearance is required. Rain, snow or flooding can make the dirt roads impassable, even for four-wheel drive, so check current park road conditions before setting out. The eastern approach on Cathedral Road avoids the Fremont River ford; the Hartnet approach includes an unbridged ford. Bring your own food, water, fuel and emergency supplies: there is no potable water in Cathedral Valley, and help may take hours or days.

The park lists auto parking and a scenic photo stop here, but does not document a developed trail. Treat it as an informal roadside visit and look for angles that show both towers against the open desert. Climbing the temples and camping at them are prohibited. Bring your own food; no food service is listed for this stop. The park lists a pit toilet at Cathedral Valley Campground, but does not list one at the temples.

Their buff-pink rock is Entrada Sandstone, laid down as sand and silt on Jurassic tidal flats about 160 million years ago. Iron-bearing minerals lend the stone its red-orange color. Cracks divided the sandstone into blocks, and erosion wore away the more fractured rock around them, leaving the tougher masses standing as separate towers. Lower Cathedral Valley lacks the harder caprock found on many nearby cliffs, which helps explain the temples' steeple-like forms.

Members of John C. Fremont's 1853 expedition may have been the first outsiders to see the monoliths. Charles Kelly, Capitol Reef's first superintendent, gave them their names and advocated for adding Cathedral Valley to the park. President Lyndon B. Johnson expanded the park to include the valley in the 1970s.

Glass Mountain is a different stop nearby: a low, roughly 15-foot dome of gypsum and selenite exposed as softer surrounding rock eroded away. It makes a distinctive foreground with the Temple of the Sun behind it, but don't mistake the pale mound for part of the paired temples.