Bryce Canyon National Park

Whether you'r loving or hating these western posts, I only have couple (probably 4) left. Personally, I have enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Not only have I gotten a chance to relive great memories, but putting these posts together has been fun figuring out which pictures to include or not to include.

As I mentioned in my Zion post, we did a day trip to Bryce Canyon instead of a couple days so we could do the Zion Narrows. I don't regret the decision at all. I do wish we would have had more time at Bryce since the scenery is spectacular. The national park is thin running north and south. Bryce isn't really a canyon. It is more like the eroded side of a plateau that drops into another plateau ( Grand Staircase National Monument). The red rock canyon formations are gorgeous.

There is one main road that goes down the center of the park. Like Zion, there are buses. Unlike Zion, you can choose to use your own car. The buses only go about half way down the road. The short hike we wanted to do was at the very end of the road, so we used my car.

When you reach the national park boundary there is a field that has a small prairie dog town. The prairie dogs from previous posts were of black tailed prairie dogs. The ones that live in the park are the endangered  Utah Prairie Dogs. We were happy to stop and see them for a couple minutes

After we got past the cute little rodents we stopped all the scenic view points. We did not have a lot of time, so we couldn't take any of the great hikes down into the formations. Although a couple of the hikes in this park are considered some of the best in the southwest, I was okay with missing them. So much of this park can be seen from the road, it was an easy pill to swallow.

                                                  Rock Formation

                                       Natural Bridge

                                        Golden Mantle Ground Squirrel

The short hike we did was the Bristlecone Pine Loop. I love seeing the 2000 year old trees So that was the hike we did in the short time we had. 

Interestingly, Ponderosa Pine, which is one of the dominant species in western forest, smells like vanilla or butterscotch. We had known this for about a month, but when Laurie got there, we made her smell the trees.

If you are hiker, two or three days would be enough to cover this park. There is a "top ten" hike in the Faityland Loop. If you have more time there is the 23 mile Under the Rim trail. If I ever get back there I'll do the Fairyland Loop ( I believe it is around 8 miles). However, if your not in condition to do serious hiking, this is a tourist friendly park that can be seen in a day. 

One last note. To stay at Zion to do the Narrows hike meant I had to give up my reservations at the Bryce campground and eat the deposit. We went to the campground while we visited the park. My site would have been the most uncomfortable of the trip. There was no tent pad. The site was on a hill that was at least a 40 degree angle. It would have sucked. We dodged a bullet on that one.