Bryce Canyon National Park - 9/3/11

Bryce Canyon, Sept. 3, 2011

Hoodoos

We camped at the KOA 5 miles north of the town of Glendale, UT (population 205).   We discovered we had no tv, cell phone or wifi for the time we are camped there.   However, it is a beautiful campground with aspen trees and grass.   The campground has a little cafe with outside seating called COOTER's CAFE -- and they make great pies!  

On Saturday we headed sixty miles north to the Bryce Canyon NP.   WOW!  The park was established in 1928 and is named after Ebenezer Bryce, a cattleman who settled in the area in 1875.   The park sits on a plateau with pines and aspen trees, and as you approach the rim, there's an 8000 foot drop-off into the colorful canyon filled with spindly, pointed rock spires and hoodoo formations caused as a result of ice and rainwater.

As you can see from the Hoodoos picture, the canyon has oranges, yellows, cream and rust colors.   Very beautiful!   We took a trolley from the Visitor's Center to Bryce Point, and from there we walked along the rim for 1.3 miles to Inspiration Point.   As many of you know, I'm not good with heights, and walking a narrow trail along the rim with no protection of any kind was a real test for me.   Jack held my hand over most of the trail, and graciously took the outside edge which helped.   This hike took about 1 hour, as not only did we walk along the edge, the trail also rose 200 feet!   We also stopped to take pictures of the breath-taking sights. 

From Inspiration Point we caught the trolley to see the rest of the park, went back to the truck to get our picnic lunch, and went back out to Sunset Point to eat it.   We enjoyed watching and listening to the other visitors to the park -- we heard German, Dutch, Japanese and other languages we didn't recognize.   The variety of clothing worn by veteran hikers from Europe was also interesting to see.

We traveled UT 12 - a scenic highway from UT 89 to get to the park, and on our way we drove through the huge Dixie National Forest and stopped at the Red Rock Visitor's Center, a recreation area with beautiful red hoodoos, natural bridges, and tunnels through the rocks.   It was a wonderful day!