Bryce Canyon

Welcome to Utah! I had no concept of the amount of beautiful National Parks in this state. Bob did his research online and found a fun Motel, RV park with camping complete with restaurant and store right outside the city of Hatch, Utah. Pictures of this will come in another post.

Our first day in the area we drove one hour NE to Bryce Canyon. Now we took over 75 pictures of this place on 4 different devices! I have chosen 24 of them to share so I'll shrink most of them and you can do the slide show thing after you read the captions :)

Bryce Canyon Lodge

Hoodoos

Yes, you read it right. I've done some research and am still not sure where the name came from, except that the Indians could have thought this up. I think, and its only my opinion, that it means noone knows what is holding these rocks up except for magic! Let me know what you think. This was the coolest hike we've done so far. If we had one more day, I'd make Bob go back with me to do this park again.

 Just in case you think this is a small area when you see the hiking pictures, here are multiple pictures taken from several different areas of the park. It really is quite majestic. Who says the rocks don't cry out to our Lord Jesus?

 Hiking

 
Here we are at the top and ready to descend. It is recommended by the Rangers that you do the loop clock-wise to be able to keep your footing easier. Yep, I agree!








Here we are enjoying the views going down thinking it is all about this...smooth paths and easy, switch-back paths.




Here you can see closer up the formations and how cool this hike really was.





















I thought these 2 hoodoos on the right looked like a child and his/her dog from the back, ha! (Child on the right,dog on the left).






Here's Bob trying to scare me again. The look on his face was funny when he actually started looking at how to get down :)








On the back third of the hike there are several steps cut into the rock and severe switch-backs to traverse to arrive back at the top. The elevation change was slightly less than 800 feet so I was able to walk it without a problem.

On the left is looking up to the top, on the right is looking back down into the slot. Amazing, just amazing!




 Critters









What is a blog without the resident creatures that call it home?

We had this little chipmunk pose,






ran across a rattle snake that looked fat and happy as he slithered across the path and into the red rock,



and this black bird that was resting on the post and could have cared less how close Bob got!






Last of all, we left the park and traveled a short distance to the back of the canyon and hiked to this waterfall. All in all, a spectacular day!