Well, the wi-fi that worked my first night at Bryce Canyon Lodge has not worked since. I’ve found a spot outside the main lodge building which has a different network, and I’m posting from there. Today (the 26th) was a short day, giving me time to spend an afternoon here uploading pictures and typing away.
Day Sixteen: June 25 (posted June 26)
Despite its altitude (8000 at the Lodge), Bryce Canyon gets hot in the summer— forecast highs in the 90s. Plus, the park service information warns that when the sun is overhead and shining right down between all those vertical rock formations, it turns them into ovens (or perhaps I should say kilns). The message is: hike early in the morning!
My plan for the day was to hike down into the canyon, and then back up. It’s always dangerous starting a hike where the easy part is first, the hard part second. But I figure I’m on safe ground choosing the Navajo Loop trail, a 1.3 mile loop which starts and ends right by the lodge.
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The park service has the loop marked as one-way, though people were going both directions even so. I followed the arrows though, taking the downward part of the loop through this section of the canyon, called “Wall Street.” |
| Vertical, knobby rock formations like this are called “hoodoos,” and Bryce Canyon is pretty much made of them. |  |
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The trail switchbacks its way down between the walls. Do I really want to go down when I know I’ll have to climb back up? But I’m embarrassed out of even asking by all the families with little kids and even babies in backpack carriers all heading blithely downward. |
| Once down at the bottom of the walls, it’s almost like you’re in a cave. |  |
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Once at the bottom, the trail emerged from the walls into more open ground.
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At the bottom, the Navajo Loop trail intersects with a network of other trails branching out across the floor of the canyon. I wandered around a bit down various trails, but didn’t go very far before heading back up, on a section of trail called “Two Bridges.” |
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| The two rock bridges that give this section of the trail its name. |  |
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After switchbacks down, there are switchbacks up. This is not the most fun part of the hike. |
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Pretty amazing formations as I get back near the top. |
After finishing my hike, I stopped by the general store for a picnic lunch and then set out to follow Bryce’s scenic drive. Some scenes along the way:
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From Farview Point, on a clear day, you can see the whole Grand Staircase region, all the way to Arizona. (You might need a telescope to know what you’re seeing.) |
| “Natural Bridge”— the park service info display helpfully points out it is misnamed. For geologists, a natural bridge occurs when a stream cuts a hole through a rock wall. When other sorts of erosion create one over dry land, as here, it’s an arch. |  |
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The scenic drive ends at Rainbow Point, where a Ranger was giving a talk on the geology of the Grand Staircase. More people were listening than it looks like: everyone was standing in a wide semicircle. |
| I especially enjoyed this bit: a fossil wasp nest, around 90 million years old. |  |
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In the distance from Rainbow Point, you can see some of the plateaus of the Grand Staircase. |
Also at Rainbow Point, another 1 mile loop trail sets out. Called Bristlecone Pine trail, it’s more of a nature trail than a hike, but I finished my afternoon by walking around it.
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A bit of irony: the info exhibits along the trail are all about how no natural fire has struck this region in a very long time, and pointing out things that happen to a forest when no fires clear out the undergrowth. But in fact it’s quite clear that a fire has been through— recently enough that the NPS hasn’t updated the information yet. |
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As evening approached, I drove out of the park for dinner, passing Red Canyon again (which I called a “preview” in the last post). I parked at its small visitor center and looked around, but didn’t take any new pictures. I did learn, however, that this was the canyon where Butch Cassidy and his gang hid out during their outlaw days.
Late night, I tried to get that picture of the starts I’m hoping for, but clouds defeated me again. Though it was mostly sunny all day, high thin clouds moved in during the evening and only small patches of stars came out.
Trip Report:
Miles driven today: 73.4
Total miles so far: 3313.5
