Bryce Canyon

Many people ask us, "what is your favorite place that you have visited?"  While it is difficult to pick a single place, we must say that Bryce Canyon has to be on that short list.  Bryce Canyon isn't truly a canyon but more of an amphitheater it is said.  Nevertheless, Bryce Canyon National Park is truly a magnificent place.  We visited for one week in September, and tried to extend for a second week but were unable to secure an RV spot.... all sold out.  We wanted to just dry camp for a couple more weeks with no need for a reservation, but our 6+ year old battery bank up and died that week.  We elected to head on down to Sun City where we found a battery source and just spend the two weeks reworking the battery issue, which we did and that is a whole separate blog post :-)  It is decided we must return to Bryce Canyon for more hiking and sight seeing.  We went into the park three times that week and took almost one thousand pictures.   We post below those we thought best represented the actual experience of seeing the magnificence.  Of course our cameras and photography skills can't really do the scenery justice, but we do what we can.

We started the week at in the Dixie National Forest at the Red Canyon trailhead and visitor center less that 3 miles east of our RV parking spot.  The shot below tries to capture the magnificent natural colors seen there.

A prominent feature in Red Canyon were the large twin hoodoos, just a foreshadowing of things to come in Bryce Canyon National Park about 10 or 12 miles farther to the east.

A little window feature waits along the trail.

I think we caught a picture of E.T. in this shot below.

Oh no that's not E.T. it's just a rock hanging out with Cheryl and Gari as they take in the views.

Cheryl & Gari style the outdoor life in the foreground of the twin hoodoos.

Gari & Cheryl going up...

A nice canyon view around that last corner.

I think one of the things that we liked best about this area, was that not only were there magnificent rock formations that Utah is famous for, but there were also lots of green trees.  The combination was the absolute best for us.

We departed Red Canyon and rode 10 miles due east passing the turn off for Bryce Canyon and arrived at the Mossy Cave and Tropic Ditch Falls.   The water was crystal clear there but appears with an aqua hue in the picture below.

The Tropic ditch is an irrigation phenomena, that was hand dug by local peoples for 10 years in the late 1800's.  The project brought precious water from the Bryce Canyon area 10 miles away to the town of Tropic.  The builders used natural water ways where they could as they plotted the course over the rocky plateau to the dry valley below.  The water has flowed continuously since it was completed in 1892, with the exception of the summer drought of 2002.
After a short walk we spotted the falls.  We heard it before we saw it.

There were several windows high up on the canyon wall.

We first walked up to the Mossy Cave grotto.  It was interesting to see the water dripping through the rock there.  It wasn't obvious to us where the water was coming from up there. but there it was.

A more clear and straight on view of the Tropic Ditch Falls.

Gari takes in the view from the top of the falls at left.

 Hero shots at the top of the falls, Cheryl first....

 Now Steve & Gari.

On the way back to camp that day we came up on the bus load of Chinese visitors that had crashed just two miles east of our RV site.  We arrived about 10 minutes after the crash had occurred.  Four people were killed and many more injured.  It was a horrific and very sad scene.  The bus was carrying over 30 people and had rolled over in the crash landing back on its wheels.  This story was reported internationally we understand and is not the first time we have found ourselves very near to national news headlines.  The road was closed for over 10 hours and the suggested route around was 100 miles through the mountains.  We decided to wait, hoping the road would open in a couple hours.  Serendipitously, we met a local ATV enthusiuast and he told us a way we could get around on NFS roads.  It was about 10 miles and he was confident we could pass through in our 5500 dually.  

So off we went with great anticipation...  This was the only shot we took along the way of the secret detour.  We didn't know where we were going, but it turned out the local fella told us right and we came back onto the highway just west of the accident and closed section of road.  This detour saved us over six hours of waiting and from driving an additional 90 miles through the mountains.

Another day and on to Bryce Canyon.  Below you can see the amphitheater of Bryce. Look at the trees, there are so many!

Zoom out a bit.

We stopped at many overlooks that day... all sensational in their own ways.

Gari & Cheryl looking around on Bristle-cone Pine Trail

Gari at Natural Bridge...

The namesake rock formation there.

This rock is called Olympic Torch for good reason.

A view at Farview Point.

A view at Ponderosa Point.

Steve & Cheryl have the best seat in the house!

A contrast in rock colors.

Inspiration Point...   We have another 300+ pictures to choose from, but we will stop here, because you get the idea.  Go to Bruce Canyon.  It is a magnificent area.