A few years ago, I set out on a backcountry camping trip to Capitol Reef National Park. I planned to loop through the Waterpocket District south of the park’s main Fruita tourist area, but angry weather gods intervened. Greeted by howling winds and thunderheads that smothered the sky, I wisely scrapped my backcountry plans and checked into a nearby motel.

Now, with light winds and clear skies, I returned for a 125-mile loop around the southern portion of Capitol Reef’s Waterpocket Fold, one of North America’s largest exposed monoclines. This 100-mile-long warp in the earth resulted from tectonic forces that tilted and buckled layers of sandstone and shale. Erosion has sculpted the uplift into a panorama of peaks, knobs, buttes and buttresses, with slot canyons splitting the cliffs.

As with all Utah backcountry drives, I carried extra clothing, food, water and a full tank of gas. Even on blue-sky days, it’s smart to check road conditions at the visitor center first. In dry conditions, most passenger cars can handle the roads, but unless one’s brother-in-law is the local tow-truck driver, no one should attempt this drive in rain, snow or when roads are wet or icy.

The fold-looping drive begins nine miles east of the Capitol Reef Visitor Center with a turn onto paved Notom-Bullfrog Road. The first stretch, outside the park, crosses rolling ranchland dotted with corrals, irrigation sprinklers and side roads.

Four miles from the turnoff, the road reaches Notom, a bygone community first settled in 1883. The Durfey roadside monument features a timeline of settlement, a list of local Durfey war veterans and the lyrics of the “Notom Song,” composed by Cline Durfey, who, with 10 siblings, grew up here during the Great Depression.

The paved road soon curves into a valley bordered by the knobs and cliffs of the Waterpocket Fold. To the east rise the Henry Mountains, the last range in the Lower 48 to be named. Explorer John Wesley Powell, who first called them the Unknown Mountains, later named the range for Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian.

After 16 miles, pavement ends and the road turns to graded gravel and dirt, usually rippled like a washboard. Cars with soft shocks and reasonable ground clearance can manage the route, but a few steep, dry wash crossings will cause serious trouble for anyone foolish enough to pull a trailer, drive a motorhome, chauffeur a limousine or race the family Ferrari down it.

THE GRADED ROAD soon enters Capitol Reef National Park, where roadside signs warn that ATVs are banned and visitors may camp only in designated areas. One of those, Cedar Mesa Campground, appears three miles later. It offers five sites with picnic tables and fire pits for campers willing to bring their own water and firewood. For Notom-Bullfrog motorists, the campground’s pit toilet is the only proper privy for miles.

Beyond Cedar Mesa, the road enters Strike Valley, where towering mesas rise in sharp ridges of Mancos shale. Beside the roadway stretches Oyster Shell Reef, an elongated outcrop of Dakota sandstone peppered with 100-million-year-old oyster shells.

About 32 miles from its start, Notom-Bullfrog Road meets the Burr Trail. From here, travelers can continue 33 miles south to Bullfrog Basin on the shores of Lake Powell, where a sprawling recreation complex offers lodging, campgrounds, restaurants, gas stations, a visitor center, an airfield, a marina and, if reservoir levels rise enough, a ferry to Halls Crossing. From Bullfrog, drivers can return to Capitol Reef by taking the main highway to Hanksville and on to the park.

A more scenic option at Burr Trail Junction climbs the Burr Trail switchbacks up and over the Waterpocket Fold. This cliff-hugging route began in the mid-1800s, when John Atlantic Burr needed a way to move livestock between summer and winter ranges. During the uranium boom of the mid-20th century, the Atomic Energy Commission bulldozed Burr’s rough cattle trail into today’s 12 percent grade, with hairpin turns, steep drop-offs and not a guardrail in sight. The Burr switchbacks are no place for RVs or anything towing a trailer. Flatlanders may go white-knuckled, but the road is reasonably wide and usually well maintained.

I first encountered these switchbacks decades ago from the opposite direction. I was driving a heavily loaded VW microbus camper equipped with old-fashioned drum brakes. Creeping downhill in low gear and barely touching the brake pedal, I reached the bottom with the smell of burning brake pads in the air. I prefer driving uphill.

Near the top of the switchbacks, side roads lead to Lower and Upper Muley Twist canyons, so named by settlers who claimed these sinuous chasms were twisted enough to turn a mule. They also open access to hikes such as Lower Muley Twist. The road soon exits the park and enters Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Here, the dirt ends and blacktop begins.

Local politicians have long wanted to pave the entire 66-mile route from Boulder to Bullfrog, but environmentalists vehemently opposed the plan. Legal fights followed, and while lawyers collected fees, the courts allowed blacktop only to the national park boundary.

The road continues past the Studhorse Peaks, crosses White Canyon Flat and enters Long Canyon, where red-rock cliffs framing the roadway make it feel like motoring through a wide slot canyon. The road climbs, crests a hill and enters Boulder, a town of about 400 on Utah Highway 12.

Here, Anasazi State Park Museum stands on the site of one of the largest Ancestral Puebloan communities west of the Colorado River. Visitors can see partially excavated ruins, tour a replica dwelling, view recovered artifacts and buy souvenir T-shirts.

Boulder is also home to Hell’s Backbone Grill, a renowned restaurant that began a quarter century ago when two women decided to open a high-quality eatery in the middle of nowhere. The menu features organic, locally produced cuisine, with many ingredients grown on the restaurant’s six-acre farm. They sell T-shirts, too.

From Boulder, Utah Highway 12 offers a high-speed, washboard-free return to Capitol Reef, climbing above 9,600 feet in Dixie National Forest before dropping through Torrey and into the park. Farm fields, forests and wide-open vistas along the way provide a refreshing finish to a day spent bouncing around the Waterpocket Fold.