A revisit to Bryce Canyon NP

But before we check in with Bryce, I wanted to share some scenes from the road through Nevada. There were many long (15 mile!) stretches of very straight road…

… free ranging cattle…

… and even Joshua Trees -

Our route into Utah had us slice through the NW corner of AZ. As we were driving, we were searching for where the road went…

… into the Virgin River Gorge -

It was amazing…

… what each curve in the road…

… revealed -

The next morning we just “had” to drive through Zion NP…

… and it was such a hardship (eyeroll) -

The way the terrain changed…

… over a short span…

… was quite beautiful -

This is a photo (Credit: @bilder.strom) of The Wave in the Coyote Buttes North, in northern AZ -

Only 64 people per day are allowed in to hike, and I really wanted to see this in person. Alas, we didn’t win the daily lottery to do so. We had to be in the local vicinity so that our phones’ location was picked up on GPS, before being accepted into the lottery. This was why we ended up driving into Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks again on this trip.

In the past, I had proclaimed Bryce as my favorite national park, and I fell in love all over again.

I just loved the gradations of color from orange, pink and white contrasted with the piercing blue sky. The picture above was taken from the “Queen’s Garden” trail. We had hiked this on our previous visits to the park, but I never get tired of it!

As the afternoon progressed during our hike, the clouds kept piling up, and the darkness provided an interesting contrast to the sandstone hoodoos -

Luckily, we just heard a lot of thunder rumbles, but only had scattered sprinkles, so our hiking didn’t have to be cut short. We combined the 3 mile Queen’s Garden Loop with the 3+ mile Peek-a-boo Loop to see new areas (to us) below the rim -

That ombre shading near the Wall of Windows was so beautiful.

And this huge bowl’s symmetry was just stunning -

(enlarge it for some neat details of the layers)

Even though the light wasn’t optimal, this last picture included all the elements I just adore in this park - huge scope, color gradations, hoodoos, and evergreens offering perfect contrast -

So this ends our massive road trip. Steve plans on sending a driving summary post. Our next big trip will be halfway ‘round the world next spring. Stay tuned!