Bryce Canyon National Park

Along my route to Bryce Canyon, I encountered a sign on the highway that said “No services next 106 miles.” That one really made do an assessment of what was going on in my car. Plenty of gas – check, water – check, food – check, okay, good to go.

I arrived in Bryce Canyon around 1:00 in the afternoon. Prior to entering the park, I obtained a campsite, set up camp, and ate lunch. I stayed at a place called Ruby’s Campground. Basically, this person Ruby has a monopoly on the entire town. She seems to own the campground, the majority of the hotels, the restaurants, the horseback and helicopter tours, and even a little old fashioned village with ice cream shops and such. The campground itself wasn’t anything to write home about, but it did have hot showers. It seems to me that the nicer campsites don’t have access to running water and showering facilities, so there is definitely a trade off. I like that I have been able to experience both. It is allowing me to stay in some nice places without going too long without a shower.

Once I entered the park, I headed towards the visitor’s center in order to try and figure out my plan of attack. I wanted to know where the best locations for viewing the sunset was (turns out Bryce Canyon is a better sunrise place, so I changed those plans) and where and what time the astronomy thing on Tuesday night I had read about in the little paper they hand out when you enter was. I decided that since I still had the better part on Monday to work with that I would drive all the way into the park and stop at each of the viewpoints and I came back out and save the hiking for Tuesday. Also, the majority of the hiking trails are in the front of the park.

The furthest point in Bryce Canyon has Rainbow Point and Yovimpa Point – elevation 9115 ft – the highest elevation in the park. My first thought was okay, nice, but nothing spectacular. Having just come from Canyonlands, the views here were nothing in comparison. I remained hopeful that they would get better. As I proceeded outward, the canyons did start getting a bit more interesting, but it wasn’t until I reached Bryce Point, which overlooks Bryce Canyon, that I saw something amazing. I’m not even really sure how to describe what I was seeing. The canyon was full of these things called hoodoos. My pictures will have to do the describing for me. I finished up my viewpoint hopping and headed out of the park for the evening. I needed to pick up a few items at the market before returning to the campsite for the evening.

View from Yovimpa Point

View of Agua Canyon - I think this rock formation looks like an angry old queen

View of Natural Bridge, allow it is actually and arch

View of Bryce Canyon from Bryce Point

Views of Bryce Canyon from Inspiration Point

Close up of the hoodoos from Sunset Point

View of Cryce Canyon from Sunset Point

View of Bryce Canyon from Sunrise Point

The temperature for that evening was forecast to be in the mid- to upper-30s, I can’t remember exactly what, so I knew it was going to be a cold night in my tent. I was sure to bundle up with layers and enclosed myself inside my sleeping as much as possible. For the most part, this warded off the cold with the exception of my feet. They were the only thing cold during the night, but they were cold enough to make getting a good night’s sleep difficult. I looked at my alarm clock several times wishing morning to come. Finally, at 5:15AM, I got out of bed to head back into the park to catch the sunrise. I was hoping the sun would warm things up considerably while I was out since I was planning to return to bed afterwards.

Like my sunset at Canyonlands, the sunrise at Bryce Canyon was not all that it could have been. There was a lot of cloud cover, so the sun, while it rose, was never given the chance to reflect off of the hoodoos in the canyon.

Sunrise over Bryce Canyon from Byrce Point

When I returned to my campsite, I threw my dirty laundry and extra plastic bags into the bottom of my sleeping bag. I also wrapped a couple of plastic bags around my feet for added insulation. That seemed to have done the trick because I was able to sleep soundly until 9:30. I hope that it continues to do the trick for Tuesday night since it is forecasted to be only 35 degrees.

After breakfast, I headed into the park to complete the first of the two hikes I wanted to do, a combination of the Queen’s Garden and Navajo Loop trails – 3 miles and 580 feet of elevation loss and gain – not too difficult. I was really looking forward to this hike because I had been able to see the trail the day before from the viewpoints overlooking Bryce Canyon. I started at Sunset Point, walked along the ridge to Sunrise Point, and then descended into the canyon. It was spectacular walking among the hoodoos.

Views of Bryce Canyon from the Queens Garden Trail

The Queen Victoria rock formation, hence the name of the trail

Views of Bryce Canyon on the connection trail between the Queens Garden trail and the Navajo Loop trail

A rather bold little chipmunk

Views of Bryce Canyon from the Navajo Loop trail

The Two Bridges rock formations

After completing my hike, I ate lunch in a little picnic area near Sunset Point. I saw this really pretty blue and black bird, but the darn thing wouldn’t hold still long enough for me to take its picture. After lunch I set off for the final two places I wanted to visit during my time here - the viewpoint for Fairyland Canyon, just outside of the park gate, and the Mossy Cave trail, a part of the park not accessible though the main entrance.

It took me longer to drive to the Fairyland Canyon view point than I spent there. I think once you spend enough time in one place everything starts looking the same. Off to the Mossy Cave Trail I went. This trail was just under a mile round trip and there were two separate end points. One was at a waterfall and the other at Mossy Cave. I decided to save Mossy Cave for last because the description sounded quite spectacular, promising ice draperies that last into the summer. The water fall was nice and seemed in stark contrast to the desert surrounding it. The “stream” that the waterfall was part of is actually a man made irrigation ditch that settlers back in the 1880’s dug so that they would have a constant water supply throughout the year. As far as drainage ditch’s go, this is the nicest one I’ve seen.

I then headed toward Mossy Cave and was quickly disappointed. The promised ice draperies were long gone and honestly, the cave isn’t that great either. It’s not even that big. It was a nice hike though, with lots of flowers along the way, and I guess that is the most important part.

Fairyland Canyon

Views from the Mossy Cave trail

Waterfall near Mossy Cave

Mossy Cave

The day has been overcast and chilly, so my plan for the rest of the day is to stay warm, which likely means spending as much time indoors as possible. At least it gave me time to catch up on my blog writing. Given the clouds, I do not have high hopes for my star gazing this evening, so I may try to head to bed early and get an early start towards Zion National Park in the morning.