Teasdale, Utah · Capitol Reef Country
The Muley Twist Inn
A five-room bed and breakfast in a pinyon pine grove outside Teasdale, Utah, minutes from Torrey and Capitol Reef National Park, from the early 2000s. Renamed Desert Skies Resort in 2023 and Luxe Den Capitol Reef in September 2026. Same building, same cliffs, same porch.
If you stayed here before
This is the same place. The inn is now The Lodge, still five guest rooms with their own bathrooms, still the wraparound porch facing the valley, still a few minutes from Capitol Reef National Park. The yurts and the dome on the bench below the house are the glamping units.
What changed is the operation. There is no innkeeper and no breakfast service. Check-in is by door code, the building can be taken as one booking for a group, and the property stays open through the winter for the dark sky. The old phone number and website are gone; booking is here.
Over the years
Early 2000s
A new bed and breakfast below the cliffs
Eric and Penny Kinsman opened the inn in a pinyon pine grove at 7,000 feet just outside Teasdale, a few minutes from Torrey, and named it after Muley Twist Canyon in Capitol Reef, said to be so narrow a mule had to twist to get through. Their first website, in 2003, called it “a new bed and breakfast” with five guest rooms, each with a private bath, a full breakfast every morning and a large porch to sit on. A double room was $99 to $109 a night.
2003 to 2020
The inn years
The rooms had names: the All American Man Room on the main floor, with a roll-in shower, and the Prairie, Desert, Canyon and Mountain rooms. Guests came for the park and stayed for Penny’s shelf of maps and trail books, the breakfast muffins and the porch. By 2020 a double room was $125 to $165 and the inn still closed every winter from October to April.
Early 2020s
Glamping on the bench
Yurts, tipis and a geodesic dome went up on the sites below the cliff, and groups started booking the house and the shells together. The inn building became the lodge of a small resort rather than a bed and breakfast.
2023
Desert Skies Resort
The property was renamed Desert Skies Resort. The Google listing most people found, with its reviews going back to 2014, kept the old name, which is why “Muley Twist Inn” still shows up on maps.
September 2026
Luxe Den Capitol Reef
We bought the property on September 27, 2026 and reopened it as Luxe Den Capitol Reef: the five en-suite rooms of The Lodge, two yurts and the dome, built around the dark sky instead of the breakfast table. The tipis were retired. The Google profile is still being renamed, so its reviews still read “Muley Twist Inn” for now.
the 2027 season
Glass domes
The glamping shells are replaced by glass-wall geodesic domes on the same sites, one curved wall of glass facing the cliffs. Planned, not built. What is coming.
From the inn’s own website
Small photographs from muleytwistinn.com, which was online from 2003 until about 2022. They are kept at the size they were published.
The inn in its first years. From muleytwistinn.com, 2003. 
The living room, with the quilt on the wall. 2003. 
From the meadow below the house. Inn website, around 2014. 
The wraparound porch, the thing guests wrote about most. Around 2014. 
The dining room, and the house from the ridge. Around 2014. 
A storm over the cliffs above Teasdale. Inn website, around 2014.
What guests said
From the Google reviews of the inn, which still sit on the same profile.
“Beautiful views and bright stars on clear nights. The host was perfect giving us our space or engaging us with wonderful stories. The breakfast muffins are the best!”
Trent, 2019
“Penny Kinsman, the innkeeper, has hiked and explored most of the park and offers first hand information on the best features, hikes and destinations in the park.”
Gary, 2014
“The Muley Twist Inn rests seamlessly in the crook of a sandstone ridge, which, if you scramble up it, rewards you with extraordinary views of the red-stone Capitol Reef cliffs.”
Matt, 2021
“Beautiful views! Relaxing environment! My goodness their porch is to die for!”
Michael, 2021
