Bryce Canyon

After talking to several locals we decided that we needed to check out Bryce Canyon. It is about a 2-hour drive northeast from Zion but we heard that it is well worth it. We were apprehensive at first. We couldn’t imagine anything in this area better than Zion for its massive size and beauty.

The drive took us through a tunnel that was blasted into the huge cliffs of Zion and stretches for a mile long. We started our journey at around 4,500’ and quickly started climbing to get out of this canyon. The road looked like a giant string of spaghetti as it twisted through the tall cliffs. We finally reached the top and it was as if we had arrived in a different region all together. Lush forests on both sides of the road that eventually leveled out to wide-open fields. Framed by tall mountains in the background.

Since we left Zion and were now arriving in Bryce it seemed that we never stopped climbing. When I looked at my altimeter it was reading 9,000’. In just a couple of hours we had climbed 4,500’ all the while our ears kept popping with the altitude change.
We entered the park and it looked like any ordinary National Forest that we have been to. Tall mountains with pine trees covering the slopes. It wasn’t until we reached the edge of this huge plateau that we realized what we were into this day.
Bright stripped colors of red, orange and white painting the different vertical formations. Created by thousands of years of water slowing carving the landscape.

As we walked along the rim trail your senses were over whelmed with the fragrance of the pine trees, the dust from the red dirt. Your eyes were bombarded with these bright colors and the formations played games with your mind as how something that big could stand vertical with such a little foundation.
Where Zion National Park is all about huge rocky cliff faces, Bryce Canyon is about subtle and delicate formations that seem will fall at any time.
We decided to walk a trail that would take us almost to the bottom of the canyon so that we could see how these formations looked from that perspective. In this case the saying goes “What goes down must come up!” We started to descend into the canyon and were immediately surprised at the size of these vertical structures. You can’t appreciate its size when you are just looking down. The path continued to descend and I just kept looking at my altimeter. 200 feet, 300 feet … finally hit bottom at 500 vertical feet. That would be like having to climb up steps of a 50-story building! As we looked around at the views it looked as if someone had taken and shaped these things by hand and added fine lines in the still fresh mud. Other formations looked like a small child had made mud pies while at the beach but only these soared to hundreds of feet high. As we slowly started our accent we were distracted by the fact that our legs were still soar from fighting the waters currents yesterday because we were walking among the giants. Afraid to talk to loudly for fear that at any moment these vertical giants would come tumbling down.

The trail twisted its way around these giant totem poles. The last bend of the trail reveled stairs. Stairs that twisted and snaked around the cliff face so as not to reveal how many stairs we would have to climb. With every breath you took you had to lift these now dead appendages, at one point called legs, and heave them up onto the next step. Now you wish you would have packed the Backpack better and gotten rid of some heavy non-essential items. Stay focused and remember to breath. Finally, reaching the pinnacle we embraced and looked back down into the canyon to see where we had been.

Exhausted but still excited with the views we had just burned into our memories to never forget, we walked back to the truck and decided that we had seen enough. We have to get back to Road Hazard to rest up because tomorrow is another full day of activities.