Bryce Canyon National Park

We spent a fabulous two days in Bryce Canyon National Park.  Kevin had already been there as a kid, but this was my first time in this fascinating landscape of hoodoos, fins, and incredible vistas.  We stayed in the cabins at the lodge on the rim of the canyon, so the trailheads at Sunset Point were only a few steps away.

For our first hike we decided to combine the Queen's Garden and Navajo Loop hikes so that we could see the rock formations up close.

One of the highlights of the Navajo Loop trail is this section, called Wall Street.  The Park recommends that you do the loop clockwise so that at the end you are hiking up all of these switchbacks.  We bucked the trend and started our hike here, walking downhill all the way -- whee!

You would think that the sandy soil would be completely devoid of life, but a number of interesting trees grow in and around the canyon.  Ancient Bristlecone Pines cling to the canyon's rim, and tall Douglas Firs actually grow in between some of the canyon walls.

The trail winds in and around the hoodoo formations.  You can barely see the trail in the center of the photo, but if you look closely you can see two tiny people walking down there.

Hoodoos are thin columns of rock that have been weathered by water and wind.  You can find them throughout the southwestern US, but the highest concentration of them is in Bryce Canyon.

Bryce is supposed to be one of the best national parks for stargazing, due to the fact that it is pretty far away from any large towns.  We were lucky to be in the park for the Saturday night astronomy talk, but unfortunately the skies were completely clouded over all night so we couldn't see much through the telescopes.  No star photos this time (but check out our Zion post...)!  We continued exploring the park on Day 2, stopping in at all the viewpoints along the scenic drive and doing several other hikes.  This section of the park totally reminded me of Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland:

Kevin put together a short video showing the highlights of this part of the trip:


Bryce Highlights from Solsticecatamaran on Vimeo.