Bryce Canyon

After Zion National Park, we drove to Bryce Canyon which is also located in Utah. We started driving in the afternoon and arrived in the evening, so we could we could hike early the next day.  We stayed the night in an RV park at the bottom of Bryce Canyon Nation Park. The RV park had an indoor pool. When we came, we quickly changed and got ready to go swimming.  The pool was very warm and we swam a little bit before it closed at 10:00pm. 

Near the entrance of the park

The next morning we drove to the entrance of Bryce Canyon National Park. When we exited the RV, we realized right away that it was very cold. We had to wear warm clothes like pants, hats, and a big jacket. The sun was out, and there were no clouds, but it was pretty windy.  When we approached the Canyon, the view was amazing.  Bryce Canyon looked like huge red sand castles.  These rock formations are called Hoodoos.  Hoodoo means to cast a spell. The mountains were formed 10 million years ago and then ancient rivers formed the Hoodoos through erosion.   

Hoodoos

Bryce Canyon was very different from the other 2 parks that we were previously. The Grand Canyon was much bigger than Bryce Canyon. For example, in Grand Canyon, we only hiked to a ridge, but in Bryce Canyon, we hiked all the way down. However, in both parks, you are standing on to and looking down the canyon. Zion National Park, we were standing at the bottom of the canyon looking up. Zion was also very green and had a river running through it.

Storm clouds are starting to appear

 At Bryce National park, we started our hike at Sunset point and did a Queens/Navajo combination loop which was about 3 and a half miles. This trail takes you all the way down to the bottom of the canyon and then you walk on the canyon floor and return up a different way.  On the way down, we were hiking we saw numerous trees that were growing sideways off of the canyon walls. There were also many holes that we could climb right into, and hide into. There was one section with three holes that we all climbed into.  When we reached the bottom of the canyon, we stopped for lunch. On the bottom of the canyon, there was a mini forest.  On the bottom we noticed that hikers had stacked small rocks on each other, to make them look like hoodoos. There were even some on the trees. Some of the stacks were larger than others. While we were walking and taking photos, we didn’t notice as the dark clouds were coming in. One of the hikers warned us that it is supposed to rain, hail, or snow.  Once we heard that, we started hurrying up. We didn’t want to get caught in the storm because we didn’t have the right clothes. Right when we got to our RV it started snowing. We were so happy that we made it!  

Bottom of the Canyon

After our hike, we decided to drive to see some of the points inside the car. One of our stops had a flat part that looked like an alligator. Can you see it on the photo below? Since it was going to snow, we decided to move on to our next stop, Death Valley.

Have you ever gotten caught in the rain or snow?