We arrived at Bryce on Tuesday morning, found a campsite in the Sunset Camp ground and set up camp first. Then we immediately went and took showers. Bryce has a small general store and public showers and after two+ hot and sweaty days in Zion, it's high on our list of things to start with at Bryce. Then we did some shopping at Ruby's, ate lunch, and because it was rainy, we went to drive the scenic overlooks and do "rainbow hunting". I've never actually seen a rainbow at Bryce, but since the rain storms are interspersed with sunlight, I figure I will one day so we keep looking. Plus if it's raining, rainbow hunting is a nice way to stay in the car, driving from scenic point to scenic point.
This particular day we drove through a pretty massive storm, including some nice hail. Luckily it wasn't big enough hail to do any damage to the car, but it was a heavy storm. Afterward we stopped at several overlooks, and at one point I said, "Get out and take a picture of some lightning." The first picture in this post is the result of that. My friend had some great luck with pictures on this trip and she snapped that one just at lightning struck.
The bad news about that particular storm is that it went through the campground while we were away and the rain must have been horizontal. Everything under the canopy was completely saturated and muddy from the mud splashed up by the rain. We have actually gotten spoiled by that canopy. We've been leaving stuff out under it that we used to put away in the car or tent before the days of the canopy. And apparently we've been lucky not to have any really heavy storms before this. This storm taught us that the canopy is only so protective. Lesson learned.
An interesting thing about the trip this year is that everywhere was swarming with people. Last year when my sister and I went on this trip there were very few people everywhere we went. This year there were masses. Last year we went 10 days later, so I wonder if that made the difference, or it was just a heavy year this year. It was very noticeable at Bryce because it took us four times going back to finally find a parking spot at the Visitor's Center to be able to get in. Another interesting phenomenon was the number of non-English speaking people. This is almost always true, but this year as we sat in the restaurant at Ruby's, we realized that EVERYONE around us was speaking French. There were no other English-speaking customers in the restaurant besides us. I was a little surprised by that. I knew that that area of Utah is a favorite vacation spot for Europeans, but usually you hear some English as well. And usually there's some German mixed in.
After the rainy Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday turned out to be picture perfect. We hiked our favorite route - park at Sunrise Point, walk the rim to Sunset Point, hike down part of the Navajo Loop, then hike the Peekaboo Loop, then come back through Queen's Garden and back up to Sunrise Point. It was gorgeous. The pictures of the hoodoos and the pine with the twisted trunk are from this hike.
Wednesday afternoon we shopped more and were lazy in the campsite. We also took pictures and a small video of a small gray mole/gopher type critter who was clearing out a burrow entrance about 20 feet from the campsite. The picture above is his head in the burrow entrance.
So Bryce was gorgeous as usual and the weather wasn't even too cold for me. Last year it was about 42 when we got up in the morning. This year it was only about 56, so not too bad. We got up Thursday morning, broke camp and drove to Capital Reef National Park, which will be my next blog post.
I'm back! Vacation was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I was going through my pictures and my friend's pictures and I realized I have so many pictures I want to share that I cannot possibly do it in one post. I decided to do a post for each park instead. That means I won't be talking about the new house for a while - which is probably all to the good.
The first park we always go to is Zion Canyon National Park, so I'll talk about Zion first. Zion is in the southwest corner of Utah so it's usually hot and this year was no exception. One of my absolute favorite hikes is in Zion though and it's become something of a tradition to go to Zion first and start out with the Angel's Landing hike. This year that hike almost kicked my ass, but I went into this vacation tired and stressed, so I shouldn't be surprised. Luckily, I'm coming out of it rested and only minimally stressed, so that's an improvement.
Anyway, Angel's Landing is one of my favorite hikes because the last half mile is more of a climb or what I call a 'scramble' than it is a hike. There are steep drops and chains set in the rocks to help you get up in places. It's great fun although it takes some energy. I nearly didn't have enough this year. I think I'll try to be a little less tired going into this vacation in the future. Anyway, the first picture is taken near the start of the point where you begin the scramble, looking up toward Angel's Landing itself, with me crossing one of the narrower points of the trail which has significant drops on both sides. The second picture is looking back down on that narrow ridge from further up the trail. It's just a great hike, but you definitely need to be okay with heights to do it.
Once you get to the top you're greeted by multiple small rodents. This little guy is one of the chipmunks, but there are also rock squirrels up there. All of them have become very used to people, especially in places like Angel's Landing, which is a popular place for people to go. Actually, come to think of it, the parks were all very full of people this year. Last year we went a little later and had more places to ourselves - including being first up on Angel's Landing - being the first to reach the top. This year we were about the fourth or fifth group to get to the top, and it stayed busy with people up there.
The view from the top is amazing in both directions. This picture is looking down canyon and you can see we had some clouds. We had rain in Zion one day this year, but even with that helping, it was miserably hot. We pulled out all of our beat-the-heat tricks, including shopping for long periods of time, eating inside in restaurants, and driving up to Checkerboard Mesa, pulling out at all the pullouts to stop and take pictures. The drive to Checkerboard Mesa and back can last around 2 hours if we take our time, and that's 2 hours in an air-conditioned car. My friend and I have actually seen bighorn sheep on this drive on two occasions over the years and this year we got a real treat. Not only did we see a small flock of sheep again, but my friend got a video of them, including two of the rams hitting head on - with a sound like a cannon shot! It's an amazing piece of video. This picture is of one of the rams and one female.
Other wildlife we saw in Zion besides the bighorns and chipmunks and the ubiquitous lizards included tiny toads along the trail where it runs by the river, which I've seen in Zion before but not on the Angel's Landing hike. We also saw a white rock squirrel near our campsite, but it was camera shy. The pictures I got were not good. And of course we saw lots of little bats at sunset and sunup. I'm not good enough to get those on camera either.
So we arrived in Zion on Sunday, set up camp and did shopping, hiked Angel's Landing on Monday and did more shopping and touristy driving, and then broke camp on Tuesday and went to Bryce Canyon National Park. From Zion we begin working our way back north and east across the state and Bryce comes next so Bryce will be the subject of my next post. See ya.
We arrived at Bryce on Tuesday morning, found a campsite in the Sunset Camp ground and set up camp first. Then we immediately went and took showers. Bryce has a small general store and public showers and after two+ hot and sweaty days in Zion, it's high on our list of things to start with at Bryce. Then we did some shopping at Ruby's, ate lunch, and because it was rainy, we went to drive the scenic overlooks and do "rainbow hunting". I've never actually seen a rainbow at Bryce, but since the rain storms are interspersed with sunlight, I figure I will one day so we keep looking. Plus if it's raining, rainbow hunting is a nice way to stay in the car, driving from scenic point to scenic point. 
The bad news about that particular storm is that it went through the campground while we were away and the rain must have been horizontal. Everything under the canopy was completely saturated and muddy from the mud splashed up by the rain. We have actually gotten spoiled by that canopy. We've been leaving stuff out under it that we used to put away in the car or tent before the days of the canopy. And apparently we've been lucky not to have any really heavy storms before this. This storm taught us that the canopy is only so protective. Lesson learned.
An interesting thing about the trip this year is that everywhere was swarming with people. Last year when my sister and I went on this trip there were very few people everywhere we went. This year there were masses. Last year we went 10 days later, so I wonder if that made the difference, or it was just a heavy year this year. It was very noticeable at Bryce because it took us four times going back to finally find a parking spot at the Visitor's Center to be able to get in. Another interesting phenomenon was the number of non-English speaking people. This is almost always true, but this year as we sat in the restaurant at Ruby's, we realized that EVERYONE around us was speaking French. There were no other English-speaking customers in the restaurant besides us. I was a little surprised by that. I knew that that area of Utah is a favorite vacation spot for Europeans, but usually you hear some English as well. And usually there's some German mixed in. 
After the rainy Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday turned out to be picture perfect. We hiked our favorite route - park at Sunrise Point, walk the rim to Sunset Point, hike down part of the Navajo Loop, then hike the Peekaboo Loop, then come back through Queen's Garden and back up to Sunrise Point. It was gorgeous. The pictures of the hoodoos and the pine with the twisted trunk are from this hike.
