We could easily have spent more time in Zion, but we wanted to make it to Bryce Canyon on this trip as well, so we took off in the morning. We've decided we are gonna come back here later anyway. We took the Zion-Mount Carmel highway through the tunnel that gets you out on the East side of the park. The higway offers some spectacular views of the mountains of the park, and it would probably be really interesting to take this route into the park.
Our next destination was Bryce Canyon National Park. It is only about 90 minutes drive from Zion. The whole countryside in this part of Southern Utah is very pretty, and it was not always clear to us whether we were indeed driving within one of the numerous national parks or not. When we arrived in Bryce Canyon (it's actually not a canyon, but more like an amphitheatre) we first picked a campground. We then took a shuttle to the furthest point of the canyon, Bryce Point.
One can walk the rim of the canyon from one end of the other. That makes about 5.5 miles (ca. 9 km) walk. One can also descend into the canyon and walk in the wonderland af hoodoos. A "hoodoo" is a pinnacle or spire-shaped rock left standing by the forces of erosion. They form when ice and rainwater wear away the weak limestone. They take all sorts of form in Bryce Canyon. And they seem to take all sorts of colours too, or hues of red, orange, yellow and white, between sunrise and sunset.
We walked along the rim from Bryce Point to Sunset Point. It took us a good part of the day. We ate our lunch pack across from Inspiration Point and shot a million pictures as new angles appeared with every step. When we came to Sunset Point, the sun was beginning to lower and the rocks were changing to a glowing colour. We decided to venture down into the canyon before it would get dark. We took a trail that lead us to the bottom of the Navajo Loop, then from there the Queen's Garden Trail up to Sunrise Point.
The place where we descended is called Wall Street, and it zig-zags down the red face of the canyon through switch backs. I got the impression I was in some primitive arabic kingdom, so otherwordly was the atmosphere. We descended between the narrow walls of enormous hoodoos and in places passed through holes in the rocks. The scale of the whole thing now came apparent to me. We tracked through all this relatively fast because shadows were catching up with us. We finally came up of the canyon again at Sunrise Point. That part was not as steep as the descent down Wall Street, but somewhat a climb still.
From Sunrise Point we walked back to Sunset Point, to complete the trail along the rim. We were just in time to admire sunset. Our campground was just across from Sunset Point, so we walked backed to the campground, prepared a cozy little dinner, then picked up our headlamps and returned to the canyon in the dark to see the full moon cast its light on it. We would gladly have captured it on photo had we been able to figure out the right settings for our new camera ...
We could easily have spent more time in Zion, but we wanted to make it to Bryce Canyon on this trip as well, so we took off in the morning. We've decided we are gonna come back here later anyway. We took the Zion-Mount Carmel highway through the tunnel that gets you out on the East side of the park. The higway offers some spectacular views of the mountains of the park, and it would probably be really interesting to take this route into the park.
Our next destination was Bryce Canyon National Park. It is only about 90 minutes drive from Zion. The whole countryside in this part of Southern Utah is very pretty, and it was not always clear to us whether we were indeed driving within one of the numerous national parks or not. When we arrived in Bryce Canyon (it's actually not a canyon, but more like an amphitheatre) we first picked a campground. We then took a shuttle to the furthest point of the canyon, Bryce Point. 
One can walk the rim of the canyon from one end of the other. That makes about 5.5 miles (ca. 9 km) walk. One can also descend into the canyon and walk in the wonderland af hoodoos. A "hoodoo" is a pinnacle or spire-shaped rock left standing by the forces of erosion. They form when ice and rainwater wear away the weak limestone. They take all sorts of form in Bryce Canyon. And they seem to take all sorts of colours too, or hues of red, orange, yellow and white, between sunrise and sunset.
We walked along the rim from Bryce Point to Sunset Point. It took us a good part of the day. We ate our lunch pack across from Inspiration Point and shot a million pictures as new angles appeared with every step. When we came to Sunset Point, the sun was beginning to lower and the rocks were changing to a glowing colour. We decided to venture down into the canyon before it would get dark. We took a trail that lead us to the bottom of the Navajo Loop, then from there the Queen's Garden Trail up to Sunrise Point.
The place where we descended is called Wall Street, and it zig-zags down the red face of the canyon through switch backs. I got the impression I was in some primitive arabic kingdom, so otherwordly was the atmosphere. We descended between the narrow walls of enormous hoodoos and in places passed through holes in the rocks. The scale of the whole thing now came apparent to me. We tracked through all this relatively fast because shadows were catching up with us. We finally came up of the canyon again at Sunrise Point. That part was not as steep as the descent down Wall Street, but somewhat a climb still.
From Sunrise Point we walked back to Sunset Point, to complete the trail along the rim. We were just in time to admire sunset. Our campground was just across from Sunset Point, so we walked backed to the campground, prepared a cozy little dinner, then picked up our headlamps and returned to the canyon in the dark to see the full moon cast its light on it. We would gladly have captured it on photo had we been able to figure out the right settings for our new camera ...
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