The 2018 RV Trip Continues

Bryce Canyon Day One

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Sunday, March 11

It rained all night at camp, and it was pretty chilly. I worried it may have changed to snow up near Bryce Canyon where we wanted to go next. With the time change, we slept in then had a late breakfast at the Thunderbird Café across the road. It was a large scale classic diner kinda place, historic to the area. We waited long enough after breakfast that the sun warmed the day, melting anything that may have frozen on the roads over night. Leaving the Mount Carmel area was a scenic drive with cute little towns filled with rustic old buildings and antique junk cars. It wasn’t long until bits of Bryce Canyon formations started to tease us. I was getting anxious to see it all. We had to stop at Red Canyon so I could catch a few photos and Lil could get in a hike. We climbed up some pretty steep rocks to get a great view of the area below.

Red Canyon

Click on photo to see more of Red Canyon area.

We drove to an elevation somewhere near 7500 feet where the land flattened out into a vast plateau. Our camp was at a small RV lot in the Ruby Inn area. After we checked in, we thought a quick drive through Bryce would help us know where to hike the next day. It turned out to be a long drive along the scenic road with many overlooks beckoning me out to photograph the spectacle of the canyon formations below us, which are called hoodoos. The ground became less barren, heavily filling with tall pine the higher we drove. Eventually, we got to the highest point near 9100 feet. I can’t even describe how astonishing it was. The hoodoo formations are a strong reminder of how 15 million years of wind, rain and tectonic shifts can carve out such intricate designs, some resembling small cities in the grand panorama. I stood at the top, the air felt so rich and fresh, I could virtually taste the melting snow, and the fragrance from the pine; it all rolled together in each intoxicating breath. Our excursion for tomorrow would take us down into the belly of all that, I couldn’t wait.

Back at camp, we warmed up and had dinner at the restaurant buffet then waddled back to the RV for a cold night.

Monday, March 12

Damn, did it get cold last night! I wanted to stay in bed until it warmed enough outside, but I was also eager to get going on our hike. We first took Lil out for her exercise so she could rest while we hiked down into the canyon.

Our hike was amazing! The sights enthralled me as we started down, but the farther we got, the more stunned I was by our surroundings. It felt like we were strolling through a fairytale land with rock cities rising above us in tall thin pinnacles. There was symmetry to a lot of them, their patterns so striking against the perfectly blue sky (my sky yesterday was not as pretty, so I was tickled). The trail wound through the pines, along broken colorful rock, and rose up through arch doorways in the rock. I couldn’t get enough of it. We eventually emerged at the top again, with the rock cities laid out below us. Man, what a view. I must have said that a thousand times. On the way back to camp, Justin dropped Lil and I off at the trail where we could walk a mile back so she could play, stopping to roll in what was left of the quickly melting snow. Today was a good day…

Bryce Canyon Day Two Click on the photo to see all of the Bryce Canyon images. The first half is day one, the second half is day two when we hiked down into the hoodoos.