5/14/08 Bryce Canyon: The Land of Hoodoos

We were on the road for the 75 mile drive to Bryce Canyon National Park at a little after nine.

Scenery from the road: still pockets of snow here and there.

The whitish color isn't snow on the mountain you are looking at, its trees that haven't leaf-ed out yet.

This picture was taken from a scenic pull over place on the road to Bryce. Now THIS is scenery!

The higher in elevation we went the more snow we saw.

This is Navajo Lake, still ice/snow covered.

We knew we were dealing with some pretty steep grades on the roadway but we were a little surprised to see this sign. We were sooooo glad we weren't towing the rig behind us! Yep, that's an 8% grade! Bob kicked in our extra towing brake that he installed and it worked just the way it should.

More road scenery. We saw A LOT of rental RV's like this one in front of us.

It was hard NOT to enjoy this ride with this to look at!

The beginning of Red Canyon, certainly aptly named.

A red rock tunnel.

An hour and forty five minutes later we arrived.

We added another $25.00 towards our National Parks pass cost. One more park, or $10.00, and it will have paid for itself.

Bryce Canyon, where the black tailed deer...

and the antelope....

and a yearling elk all play.

We were advised in the Visitor's Center that the best way to see the park is to drive to the end of the road, about 18 miles and on the way back stop at the overlooks. Doing it this way put you in a better position with the flow of traffic.

So we started out sightseeing at....

There were very nice walkways out to the point.

The view from the outermost point. In the center of the picture you can see a peak, this is called Molly's Nipple and is actually 22 miles away.

Another view from the same point. Looking at this picture, look at the bottom of the picture and find the snow that is just left of center. Now find Molly's Nipple in the right third of the picture,,,draw a line "up" from the snow and line left from Molly's Nipple. Where they intersect you can see a peak. That is 86 miles away!

It is here I found this entries dead tree.

We moved on to Farview Point. What we could see from there.....

Views from Rainbow Point.

It is here that Bob asked me to hold my hand and he dropped this in it.

Holding snow in my hand on May 14th!

More pictures of what we saw....

Can you imagine what a setting sun would like against these colors?

How do I find words to describe this?

Now here is where it really gets spectacular!

These are Hoodoo's.

In the picture below, look in the center of the picture and you can see a little town.

Its in this little town that Ebenezer and Mary Bryce settled, the couple for whom Bryce Canyon is named for.

What it looks like from the other end of the trail.

It was time to move on to the next point, but I can tell you it was very hard to leave this!

From this vantage point we could get up close and personal with the hoodoos.

Look closely, you can see people in much better physical shape than us me who opted to hike down to the canyon floor.

Can you imagine what this must look like at sunset?

Bob had to finally tear me away from this and we headed out. We spotted this little group on the way.

This black tailed deer posed for me.

What a wonderful day this was! Sights I didn't even know existed.

More pictures from the Red Canyon on the way home.

It amazes me that these rocks don't fall!

We hope you enjoyed your trip through Bryce Canyon National Park.

For dinner we stopped at the Pizza Hut for dinner and went home and collapsed after all the walking, climbing and picture taking we did today.