We got up in the dark, because our friends back home told us not to miss sunrise at Bryce Canyon. We were there in time, but Mr. Sunshine decided it was a day to stay covered up with blankets of clouds. I believe it would have been breathtaking! But not today, so we hiked in the nice cool morning.
The canyon is very colorful and amazing!
We were dressed for heat with our SPF shirts and hats, but it wasn’t even 60 degrees! Absolutely perfect for hiking!!
The contrast of colors with the red, orange, yellow, white of the rock, and the green pine trees really made this a spectacular beautiful place to hike!
It was so neat to be able to hike to the bottom and look back up at the “hoodoos”. That’s what the columns of rock are called.
Of course there were places for fun and silliness on the trail!
Lots and lots of chipmunks! And not only are they NOT afraid of people, we were advised not to set down our backpack, or they’d get into it. I believe it! They were not skittish at all! But still so darn cute!
They were everywhere!
We hiked the Queen’s Garden and Navajo Loop combo trail. We hiked a total of 8.3 miles and equivalent of 29 stories today. (It was a steep climb out.)
The end of Navajo Loop goes through a place called Wall Street with very high walls and columns, and then through a skinny slot with lots of switchbacks to climb out of the canyon. It was really neat- and steep, and we took a little rest at about every Z in the path! Kenny just kept saying he was glad he wasn’t the guy who had to build the trail!
We paused to take a good overview of the canyon in the daylight. We both really, really enjoyed this place! We probably only met a dozen people on the hike!
I tried to do a panoramic with my phone.
Since we started so early, we were done with the hikes that we really wanted to do at Bryce by mid-morning. So we headed off to Zion National Park. It is about 80 miles away.
We were told by some people on the trail at Bryce, to watch for bighorn sheep going into Zion. Sure enough! We saw a group of about 5…
We went into Zion from the East on the Zion-Mount Carmel Hwy and Tunnels. The walls around the road here looked like varied colors of thick mud that had been layered. And there was a tunnel over 1 mile long through the solid rock that was built in 1930, though one of the cliff walls!!
After we came through the tunnel, the scenery was completely different. Very pretty and rugged.
There isn’t much parking available in the park, so there are shuttles that run during busy months. We parked in Springdale which is just outside the entrance of the park. This was easy, but we were really disappointed because really the only way to enjoy the scenery of the park was to get off at every stop to look around, which we didn’t do. There were SO many people at this park!!
There were lots of very large squirrels in this park. And they were almost aggressive to get your attention. They would scamper right up to anyone who looked like they might have food. This guy on the trail was having no problem getting a close up picture!
We did the Riverwalk trail. It is a fairly level, paved trail one mile each way…. with about 1,000 people. Far too crowded for our enjoyment. At the end of the pavement is the beginning of the Narrows trail, which is actually the river. You hike up the river as it narrows into a slot canyon. It would be cool to do, but there were waaaayyyy too many people. We had a hard time getting a picture that only had a few people in it.
This peak is one of the classic icons of Zion National Park.
Zion was really pretty and with the river, it has a lot of vegetation. It was a fairly cool day because of the clouds and a little sprinkle of rain, so it was the most humid place we’ve been for awhile! If it had not been so crowded with people, we might have spent more time there. Kenny really wanted to do the Angel’s Landing trail, but I’m too chicken to do trails with big drop-offs, and there were just too many people everywhere to really enjoy the nature. Nothing serene about Zion today!
Angel’s Landing is the crazy hike we did. Lots of heat, lots of people, steep and scary, but so beautiful and an experience (chain link rope last half mile to hang on to) we will never forget!