Torrey, Utah / The town / Dark sky
A town of a few hundred people wrote a stricter lighting law than most cities have
Torrey Dark Sky Community
Torrey became a dark sky community the hard way. In 2018 it became the first in Utah to earn the designation, and the first national park gateway town in the country to do it, and it got there by rewriting its outdoor lighting ordinance and retrofitting its own street lights. This page covers what that ordinance actually requires, what the measurements say, and what the whole thing means on a night when you are standing outside.
If you read one section
Two designations, one valley, and a real difference outside
Two things sit next to each other here. Capitol Reef National Park was designated a gold tier International Dark Sky Park in April 2015, the seventh national park unit to earn it, after raising its own night friendly lighting from 30 percent to 70 percent. Torrey was designated an International Dark Sky Community in January 2018, the first in Utah.
Those are different programs. A park designation is about protecting a dark place. A community designation is about a town agreeing to stop making it brighter, which is harder, because it means telling residents and businesses what fixtures they may install.
The practical result is that the town does not wash out the sky the way a gateway town usually does. You can walk out of a restaurant in Torrey and see the Milky Way, which is not true in most places eleven miles from a national park.
Looking to book a night out or find the darkest spot? The stargazing page has the park's own sky quality readings by location, the free ranger programs and who sells a tour. This page is about the designation itself.
The part that did the work
What Torrey's lighting ordinance actually requires
Chapter 9-4 of the town code is the instrument behind the designation. It is stricter than most city ordinances and the requirements are specific enough to be worth reading, whether you are curious or you own property here.
| Requirement | What the ordinance says | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Fixture type | All outdoor lighting shall use full cutoff fixtures, designed and constructed so that no light is emitted from the top or sides of the fixture | This is the single most effective rule in dark sky lighting. Light that goes up is wasted and it is what creates sky glow |
| Color temperature | Shall not exceed 3000 degrees kelvin | Blue rich white light scatters far more in the atmosphere. The 3000K cap keeps lighting warm, which also happens to be easier on human eyes |
| Brightness cap | 25,000 lumens per net acre for commercial properties, 5,000 lumens per acre for residential | A total budget rather than a per fixture rule, so you cannot comply by installing many small lights |
| Commercial curfew | Commercial establishments must turn off all outdoor lighting by one hour after closing | An empty car park lit all night is the commonest source of small town light pollution |
| Recreational curfew | Recreational lighting shall be turned off by ten o'clock at night | Sports and court lighting is bright and unshielded by nature. A hard cutoff at 10pm is a real constraint |
| Exemptions | Holiday lighting from 15 November to 15 January, traffic signals, pathway lights under 18 inches with opaque caps, and low voltage LED and solar lights | The exemptions are narrow and sensible, which is why the ordinance holds up |
The ordinance states its own purpose as minimising light pollution, glare, light trespass and sky glow. Those are four different problems and it is unusual for a small town code to name them separately.
The town also did the part that costs money: it retrofitted its own town owned street lighting to comply. Writing a rule for other people is easy. Paying to replace your own fixtures is the step that earns a designation.
On dates, we are being careful. The ordinance document carries one date and the town's designation application describes it as adopted in a different month, and nothing reconciles the two. What is certain is that Chapter 9-4 was in place before the 2018 designation, which is the part that matters.
Somebody counted
What the measurements say
Dark sky designations are not awarded on atmosphere. They require measurement, and the numbers behind Torrey's application are public.
The town itself
The application behind Torrey's designation reports an average of 21.4 magnitudes per square arcsecond, drawn from 565 individual measurements at five monitoring sites across 2015 and 2016. About 98 percent of those measurements were darker than 20.
It also places the town on the Bortle scale at 2 to 3, describing Torrey as sitting on the edge of a dark place. Bortle 2 is a genuinely dark site. Most people have never stood under one.
Population at the time of application: 241.
The park next door
The park runs its own sky quality meter readings and publishes them in its annual report to the designating body. Its darkest recorded site is Cathedral Valley Campground at 22.74, and its visitor center parking lot measured 21.83.
Put those beside the town's 21.4 and the picture is clear. Torrey is darker than most national parks, and the park is darker still. The gap between standing in town and driving into the park is smaller than you would expect.
A note on the unit, because it appears everywhere and is rarely explained. Magnitudes per square arcsecond measures how bright a patch of sky is, and the scale runs backwards: a higher number means a darker sky. Twenty one is good. Twenty two is excellent. The difference between 21.4 and 22.74 sounds small and is not, because the scale is logarithmic.
The other half of the arrangement
The park's designation, and its one firm rule
Capitol Reef earned gold tier status, the highest quality tier the program awards, in April 2015. The designating body was the International Dark-Sky Association, which now trades as DarkSky International, so both names appear in older and newer material about the same organization.
What the park had to do to qualify was physical rather than declarative. It raised its night friendly outdoor lighting from 30 percent to 70 percent of fixtures. Its natural resource condition assessment separately rates its sky as good on luminance, anthropogenic light pollution and sky quality, and good to fair on illuminance.
The rule photographers need to know
The park's wording is unambiguous: using artificial light sources to light up landscapes, rock formations, or other park features is prohibited. Artificial light sources may be used for personal route finding or minimum impact camping only.
That is a light painting ban and it sits in the superintendent's compendium, so it has legal force rather than being a request. It also means any lit foreground you have admired in someone else's Capitol Reef astro photograph was taken elsewhere, taken before the rule, or taken in breach of it. The photography page covers the rest of the night shooting rules.
The two designations reinforce each other, which is the point of a gateway community earning one. A dark park beside a bright town is a dark park with a glow on one horizon. Here there is no glow on that horizon, because the town decided there would not be.
Practical
What it means on the night
You do not need to go far
The visitor center parking lot measured 21.83 and Panorama Point 21.76, both paved and both a short drive from town. The darkest site in the park is better, at 22.74, but it is a backcountry road away.
Step outside your accommodation first. In Torrey that is often enough, which is the whole return on the ordinance.
The moon decides more than the place
The Park Service's guidance is simple: the Milky Way is best in summer and fall evening skies, and if the full moon is up it will be hard to see. No official source publishes a more precise window for this location, so plan around new moon and accept that the rest is weather.
Allow twenty minutes outside for your eyes to adapt, and use a red light. That does more than any equipment.
Heritage StarFest
The park and the Entrada Institute run an annual night sky festival across four days in September, with the first three days in the park and the Saturday in Torrey itself, at the town park and Entrada's Robber's Roost venue.
Star parties with rangers and visiting amateur astronomers, solar telescope viewing and talks. Activities are free, though the Saturday events in town require registration.
If you are staying here, a small courtesy that is also the local law: use the lights your accommodation provides rather than adding your own, keep curtains drawn at night rather than lighting the yard, and point a torch at the ground. Every visitor who does that is part of why the measurements stay where they are.
Sleeping under it rather than driving out to it is the better version of all this. The camping page covers Fruita in the orchards and the two free primitive campgrounds, one of which is the darkest measured site in the park.
Straight answers
Dark sky questions
What is an International Dark Sky Community?
A designation awarded to a town or city that has adopted quality outdoor lighting rules and shown a commitment to protecting the night sky. Torrey earned it in January 2018, the first community in Utah and the first national park gateway town in the United States to do so. Communities are not tiered the way parks are.
What does Torrey's lighting ordinance require?
Full cutoff fixtures emitting no light from the top or sides, a color temperature no higher than 3000 kelvin, caps of 25,000 lumens per net acre commercial and 5,000 residential, commercial lighting off within an hour of closing and recreational lighting off by 10pm. Holiday lighting, traffic signals, low pathway lights and low voltage LED and solar lights are exempt.
Is Capitol Reef a dark sky park too?
Yes, at gold tier, the highest quality tier, designated in April 2015 as the seventh national park unit to earn the status. To qualify the park raised its night friendly outdoor lighting from 30 percent of fixtures to 70 percent.
How dark is Torrey really?
The measurements behind its designation average 21.4 magnitudes per square arcsecond across 565 readings at five sites, with about 98 percent of readings darker than 20, placing the town at 2 to 3 on the Bortle scale. Higher numbers mean darker skies. For comparison the park's darkest recorded site, Cathedral Valley Campground, measured 22.74.
Can I do light painting for photography?
Not in the park. Using artificial light sources to light up landscapes, rock formations or other park features is prohibited, and artificial light may be used for personal route finding or minimum impact camping only. The rule sits in the park's superintendent's compendium.
Do I need to drive into the park to see stars?
No. The town itself measures at Bortle 2 to 3, and the park's own paved visitor center lot measured 21.83. Stepping outside in Torrey on a moonless night is usually enough. Driving to a darker site improves it, but by less than most people assume.
When is the dark sky festival?
Heritage StarFest runs over four days in September, hosted by Capitol Reef National Park and the Entrada Institute, with the first three days in the park and the Saturday in Torrey. Activities are free, with registration needed for the Saturday events in town. Dates move each year to sit near the darkest weekend, so check the park's festival page.
The designations come from the designating body, the ordinance text from the town code as published in Torrey's designation application, and the light painting rule from the park regulations page, all checked September 2026. Sky quality figures come from Torrey's designation application and the park's annual report to the same body.
Next step
Then go outside and look up
The ordinance did its work. All that is left is a moonless night and twenty minutes of patience.
Also useful: the town itself, picking a month, where to stay and somewhere to eat first. If you are driving in after dark, read the approach roads, and if you have one day, this is how to spend it. Or who writes this site.