Baby, it’s cold outside!

Byjnkdblog

We drove to Bryce and enjoyed some scenery along the way:

A preview of what Bryce will offer
This doesn’t even look real- but it’s beautiful!

We are camping in a campground just outside Bryce Canyon- and it’s beautiful!  After we got set up we took a drive into the park so we could get familiar with the layout. 

There is a free shuttle that runs from the hotels and campground into the park, which really simplifies things- especially when it comes to parking the truck!

There are 2 major differences between Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National park:

  1. At Zion you are down in the valley and hikes go up; at Bryce you are at the top and hikes go down (and then back up- wheeze wheeze).
  2. It’s about 15-20 degrees colder at Bryce! We were wearing shorts and t-shirts in Zion, but it is below freezing at night in Bryce, and we have switched to jeans and layers that we can peel off as the day warms up to 55-60 degrees- brrr!

So far we like Bryce best- the colors and rock formations are amazing!  We have seen walls of rock (mesas, cliffs, etc.), fins (thin walls of rock), windows (holes in the rocks) and hoodoos (pillars of rock- sometimes connected to other hoodoos and sometimes standing alone)- it’s like another world!  On our first trip into the park we took the scenic drive and stopped at most of the pullouts to look down into the three amphitheaters- what you and I would call canyons.  There are so many hoodoos that they seem to all run together.

On the second day we combined 3 hikes, the Rim Trail from Inspiration Point to Sunset Point, the Navajo Trail that starts at Sunset point and goes down into the canyon, and the Queen’s Garden, which we took back up out of the canyon at Sunrise Point. 

The start of the trail is at the first tree on the left, and if you look carefully you can see people at different levels in the canyon
views along the trail, which you can see
if you look carefully you can see the trail

We started going down the Navajo Trail, which is very steep and takes you quickly down about 600 feet into the canyon and walking among the walls and hoodoos.  One of the hoodoos we saw is called Thor’s Hammer- it makes sense:

As you continue walking amongst the formations and the trees you meet up with the Queen’s Garden Trail, which has a tall hoodoo that looks like Queen Victoria, and the smaller hoodoos are considered her garden:

 Then we went back up to the top at Sunrise Point- about 600 feet up.  I admit, going down is WAY easier than going up! Thank goodness for our hiking poles!

On the next day we hiked the Bristlecone Trail, which gives a different perspective of the park as it goes through forest and the overlooks are more of forested canyon.

We saw lots of hoodoos that looked like different things to us:

This looks like flames- or maybe Jack-Jack in The Incredibles
This reminded us of the 3 monkeys- see no evil, say…
Don’t the hoodoos n the left look like they are kissing?
Looks like a face in the rock!

Here are some of the other things we saw:

Balancing Rock
Windows in a wall
A window you could walk through

And here is the Natural Bridge, which is formed when an arch is over water or somewhere where there used to be water:

We took a short snack break on a hike and made a new friend:

We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets:

And finally, we tried to get pictures of stars and the milky way- let me tell you, it’s hard to hold a phone perfectly still for 30 seconds- I need to get a tripod!

We hope you enjoyed this visit to Bryce Canyon- it is a must-see place!

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