After our day in Zion, we stayed in a hotel in Springdale,
right outside the Park entrance. The
next morning we drove back into Zion to head to Bryce Canyon. After emerging from the Zion tunnel, we were surprised that,
although we were no longer in the canyon, the landscape was no less amazing. We
were surrounded by weathered, striated, undulating stone hills that were
beautiful and begged to be climbed on.
Of course all the turnouts seemed to be on the
opposite side of the narrow road, but we finally found one at the foot of one
of the hills. I say hills, but they were quite high:
From about 1/4 of the way up
Charlie sitting on the side
This area is a little to the left of the part that we climbed
up. It was pretty steep, and quite fun to climb up.
We then exited Zion and continued on to Bryce Canyon. We
picked up a park newsletter on the way in, which explained the very interesting
geological background of the “canyon”. But first, some pictures. We took the
Queen’s Garden walk down in to the canyon.
Walking down the trail
Charlie in front of some hoodoos
Dan and Alice walking down the trail. Both kids were pretty
tired and Alice had a huge meltdown about ¾ of the way down. Serendipitously I
had a bar of chocolate with me, which I found was a great way to ameliorate a
meltdown. Crisis averted!
We had fun seeing images in the hoodoos:
Alice's Teapot
Snail on left, Owl on right.
So cool!
So as I mentioned earlier, Bryce Canyon is technically not a
canyon as there is no river causing the erosion. Instead, in the words of Dr.
Larry Davis, Bryce Canyon Geologist-In-Residence, Bryce Canyon “is an eroding,
retreating plateau margin, which is a tongue-twister and doesn’t fit well on a
t-shirt”. So Bryce “Canyon” it is…
We have been enjoying my Aunt and Uncle’s hospitality for
two days here in Logan – we all leave this morning for Grand Teton and Yellowstone.
Then we will part ways and they will head home while we continue the next leg
of our journey.
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