Bryce Canyon National Park - June 24 to 26, 2019
From Capitol Reef, we headed south on Route 12 towards Bryce Canyon National Park, passing through Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Yet again the scenery driving through Utah did not disappoint us and Right Buddy (RB) was again pointing her camera out the van window as we drove along.
We arrived at Bryce Canyon midday, hoping we could get a campsite within the park. Normally Bryce Canyon takes campsite reservations, but this year all sites were first come - first serve. We stopped at the registration board to pick up an envelope and heard there were not many spots left, so we took almost the first vacant site we saw in Loop A. It was a great spot in the woods on the outside of the campground, with a short trail that led over to the Visitor Center at the park entrance.
After eating a quick picnic lunch, we walked over to the Visitor Center and hopped on the free park shuttle. The shuttle stops at the popular viewpoints along the rim that looks over all of the hoodoos down in the canyon. We stopped at Bryce Point and Inspiration Point, walked the Rim Trail from Inspiration Point to Sunset Point, then took the shuttle again over to Sunrise Point, then hopped on again to return to the Visitor Center. The shuttle was a great way to get to those locations as the parking is very limited and gave us a nice overview of the park. Even though all the overlooks are along the same canyon, each view looked different and uniquely spectacular.
As we were walking the Rim Trail, we kept hearing a clicking noise coming from the trees. Left Buddy (LB) manage to figure out the noise was coming from insects in the branches of the trees. RB took a picture of one. Later we asked a park ranger about them. He said they were cicadas. The clicking did not sound like the cicadas we remember from our childhood back in Ohio. However, later that evening the cicadas' song changed to the one we are more familiar with. Apparently the species in Bryce Canyon also produce clicking sounds. According to Wikipedia, there are thousands of different cicadas species and their song can vary from species to species.
Loops A and B of the North Campground are for vehicles greater than 20 feet long and are level sites. Loops C and D are for vehicles less than 20 feet and are not necessarily level where the vehicles are parked as these sites are intended as tent sites. Luckily we didn’t see the length restrictions before selecting our site in Loop A, as our van is just under 20 feet, but we need a fairly level parking spot. The ranger that checked our site registration did not say anything, so we stayed in Loop A. Each loop has its own restroom building with flush toilets, but no soap. When we walked over to the restroom in our loop after dark, there were a handful of small lights near the edge of the sidewalk that circled the building. At first we thought they were small LED’s to light the path, but LB investigated closer with his flashlight. Sure enough, they were tiny glow worms.
The next day we decided to go on a long hike. We chose what is called the mini figure eight route which is a combination of the Navajo Loop Trail and the Peekaboo Loop Trail. We took the shuttle over to Sunset Campground (which was closed for renovations) and walked over to Sunset Point to pick up the Navajo Loop Trail. This added a little distance to our hike, but saved us time as the shuttle only stops at Sunset Point on the way back from Bryce Point. We descended down into the canyon on the Wall Street section of the Navajo Loop, crossed over the dry creek bed at the bottom and took the Peekaboo Loop Trail in the clockwise direction. We enjoyed walking down the ever narrowing switchbacks that, from above, seem to lead to a dead end. Once we reached the Peekaboo Loop Trail we found it is shared by both hikers and horseback riders, but we did not pass any horses while we were on it; however, we did see evidence that horses were on the trail recently. Peekaboo ascends the canyon wall again, almost to Bryce Point before dipping back down into the canyon. There is actually another small rise before coming back down to the dry creek bed. This had us a little concerned because we knew we needed to descend to get back to the Navajo Trail. There was one small, very steep downhill section that really bothered RB’s foot, but her foot recovered fairly quickly afterwards.
It was amazing how the hoodoos looked different from each different angle. LB was giving RB a hard time about constantly switching out her camera lenses, but she saw so many great shots that she didn’t want to miss. When we got back to the Navajo Loop Trail, for some reason the park service had closed the other half of the Navajo Loop Trail. Not wanting to retrace our steps up the Wall Street section, we opted for a change of scenery and hiked out of the canyon via the Queens Garden Trail. This worked out better because we came out at Sunrise Point, near the General Store which had cold Cokes waiting for us. After our five and a half hour hike covering almost seven miles and 1600 feet elevation gain the Cokes were very refreshing.
The next morning found us back at the General Store, this time to take advantage of the coin laundry and shower facilities. The showers took a $3 token that was good for eight minutes. Neither one of us had never timed ourselves taking a shower before, so we both hastily washed our hair so we wouldn’t have a head full of shampoo when the water turned off. However, it turns out that eight minutes is a pretty long shower, even after spending the first minute adjusting the temperature of the water, so we spent most of the time just enjoying the water.
After our bodies and clothes were clean and dry, we drove the van down the 18 mile (each way) scenic drive to Rainbow Point, stopping along the way to have a picnic lunch. The picnic area we stopped at was in a large burn out area, not the most scenic, but you could see quite a distance since there were no tree branches to block you view. At Rainbow Point, we walked the one mile Bristlecone Loop Trail. Between what looked like a fairly recent fire and dead trees due to the pine beetle, there were not many bristlecone trees left, but it was still an enjoyable short hike. We are not sure what came first, the fire or the pine beetle killed trees, perhaps the dead trees provided the fuel for a large fire. There were lots of stacked up piles of the dead trees along the sides of the trail, ready to be burned. On our drive back, we stopped at all the viewpoints along the way from Rainbow Point to Swamp Canyon.
We ended our sightseeing similar to the day before by stopping at the General Store for cold Cokes, but this time we added soft serve ice cream to our purchase. When you have limited refrigerator space and don’t have ice or a freezer, it is amazing how great a cold drink or ice cream tastes!
Check out our related video: Bryce Canyon National Park June 24 - 26, 2019
(RB)