We arrived at Bryce Canyon NP on Tuesday, April 21. We had a few choices for places to stay, but we really wanted to stay in the NP at the North campground. They don’t take reservations this early in the season, so we knew we needed to get there by around noon. We got going early for us and got on the road. We could have taken Hwy 12, but that went to almost 10,000 feet (see previous post), so we took another route. Route 24 to 62 to 22. It was an interesting drive down a sparsely populated valley. You can really see the influence of early Mormon settlers in this part of Utah. The drive up 22 took us through a canyon that was really impressive.
We arrived at the park and found that they had vacancies in the campground. The sites are not very level and kind of a trick to get a big rig into, but we managed. We can take a short walk (about 50 Yards) from our site to the rim of the canyon. We have no electricity and no water at our site.
We have gone almost all of April with no electricity. The good news is that we have been managing with no real issues except my batteries do not have enough capacity for my needs (all night CPAP). I have decided to order an external battery pack for the CPAP to isolate that need. It is expensive at $279, but that should give me additional options for exploring in the future. Sorry for that tangent, but that information may be helpful for some of my readers.
The views are certainly spectacular from the rim, but we wanted to take a hike down into the canyon. I have been reading about other bloggers that have visited Bryce and I have been weighing our options. We decided to give one of the ultimate hikes a try on Thursday.
On Wednesday we took a short drive and went to the Visitor Center and watched the movie. It was quite interesting. Then we took a short drive to the famous Bryce Canyon Lodge.
We then went to Sunrise Point and Sunset Point. Both of these are a mile walk from our campsite.
These formations are called Hoodoos and are the signature formation in the park. Some are very large, but what makes them unique is their intricacy. They each look like an individual sculpture. There are millions of them in the canyon.
The canyon is also beautiful with pine trees and distant vistas of red and white colored rocks. You can even see a bit of snow left at this 7800 foot elevation.
The rock formations are the star of the show, they are really cool to see up close.
We were both excited to walk down in the canyon. The weather looked good for Thursday, but was turning much colder after that. Thursday it was. That walk turned into something I will never forget. Come back for an entry to tell that story. Who knew that is a Hoodoo?
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