I made this updated map and bird's eye view of Capitol Reef National Park without ever having visited the place. For some reason, travel wasn't possible for this trip.

Luckily, I was an SCA intern at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park one winter. One other person lived anywhere near me in the park; it was cold and quiet and dark; and I was living there alone—so I had plenty of time on my hands. And I used that time to hike and backpack as much as possible.

While I didn't make it down to Capitol Reef, I spent some very memorable weekends in the sandstone layers of the San Rafael Swell, Goblin Valley State Park, and the Horseshoe Canyon area of Canyonlands National Park. I saw the Henry Mountains (the last mountain range to be added to the map of the 48 contiguous states in 1872) far to the south and wanted to go.

These maps were a chance to visit the area in my mind.

• For the bird's eye inset of the visitor center area, I used Natural Scene Designer to drape aerial imagery over a hillshade from 10m DEM. Using that as a base, I hand-painted the rocks, vegetation, and streams to create a realistic yet diagramatic look.
  
  
• Base colors are a combination of hypsometric tints, satellite imagery, and hand painting via a Wacom tablet.
• The next layer is textured trees derived from NLCD Percent Tree Canopy.
• Relief is shown via full-color illumination derived from hillshades and texture shades enhanced and finessed in Photoshop.
  

Original files available at NPS.gov