Day 7: Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon is about 2 hours east of Cedar City, UT following 'scenic' 14A . The 'A' is supposed to mean 'alternate' but frankly I think it means 'altitude' or 'arduous'. For the first time we saw birches (Kelley thinks they're aspen) among the pines, and from the looks of them, spring had only recently arrived. For some stretches, there were fairly recent lava flows behind and among them as well.

The views were spectacular, but nothing compared to our first views of the peculiar and unique geography of the Bryce Canyon area. Our first introduction came 9 miles before we entered the park along route 12 at Red Canyon. It's pretty wild to turn a corner on the road and be presented with a completely different geology, and one so brightly colored at that.

We did some hiking but we really in a hurry to get to Bryce :-)

We noticed one weird effect. If you examine these extraordinarily red rocks up close for about 3 minutes and then step back to take in the rest of the scenery, greys and greens in the trees and the blue in the sky take on a surrealistic bluish tint (complementary colors, those red and blue [Ruth tells me I'm wrong wrong wrong, and I believe her. It was still a cool visual artifact :-)]). The camera can't capture that, although I suspect I could photoshop it :-)

Just as with Zion, we stopped in a shuttle parking area and took a park shuttle into the park itself. Another 20 minute introductory film awaited. Mom and Dad did a better job of staying awake this time :-). Apparently, the area we were about to enter was soft sandstone carved by wind and rain into bizarre shapes the chief of which are the 'hoodoos'. (A pinnacle or other odd shaped rock left by the forces of erosion.)

Time to hit Arches (we're here in Moab at the moment), so I'll finish this later! Ok, back.

There are several loops we could have taken, on the suggestion of the Ranger, we decided to combine two. The Navajo loop is no longer a loop since the rock slide that split it in two in May 2006, and the Queens Garden Trail (1.8 miles) links up to it and is less steep. Even before we started, however, the rim trail has spectacular views of the hoodoos. This is off the right of the starting point.

What is amusing is that means we go from Sunset Point to Sunrise Point. We decided to start at Sunset Point because it is steeper than the ending point. On the left are the switchbacks. On the right, we are looking up from near the bottom of the switchbacks.

The rock walls and the hoodoos are very crumbly in most places. It was amazing they were able to keep the trails clear -- in fact they had a little garden tractor with a blade set up to do just that, parked on a 'spur' trail.

The kids even found a place to stay for the rest of the vacation. It would have been nice, but...their friends would have missed them when we didn't go and pick them up.

At the bottom of the switchbacks we stopped for some lunch and were accosted by some hungry wildlife. The most amusing thing was the Becky kept running away from the chipmunks for some reason. It may have had something to do with their habit of jumping up on the bench behind you when you weren't looking.

In any case, it was very nice to walk among the trees, even though we didn't see any free-running water. This is a pretty common theme for the parks so far. Even the Colorado river doesn't really count since it was always so far away.

Then the trail turned back upslope, and we started to see more and more hoodoos. This is where Scot got stupid and tried to climb one of the chimneys -- see there on the left? That vertical crevice? Yeah, that's me in there. Well, when my right handhold evaporated, I didn't let go fast enough with my left, wrenched my left shoulder and scraped the heck out of my right arm. And I was only 6" off the ground. So much for that. Hey, the family doesn't know, so don't tell them ok? The scrapes have almost healed, so maybe they won't notice...

The views from the Queen's Garden area were just wild, so I'll just include a few here.

And the vista's at the end.

These aren't a 10th of the pictures we took. I'd have to say that after Grand Canyon, Bryce is the most spectacular. Go there if you get the chance. Boy, was that a long trail, though ...