As I noted in my previous post, it was cold enough for frost inside the car. So I was a late riser. But after breakfast I packed up the car (which requires minimal work in this setup) and headed over to the “General Store” in Bryce. I had seen in the handout I had picked up that it had showers. So I figured I’d snag an early parking spot, explore the park, shower and then head out.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do in Bryce and my first view of the “canyon” left me a bit underwhelmed. I’ll stop here a second to note that Bryce Canyon is a misnomer. It’s not carved by a river and really only has one rim. In fact the area I was in, which is often said to be the most beautiful section is actually called the Bryce Amphitheater.

That said, my next views corrected my initial impression. Bryce is amazing.

Bryce is known for what are called hoodoos. The pictures below give an idea of what they are, but one could call them water and wind eroded fingers of rock sticking up. Bryce claims to have the largest collection of them in a single area in the world. I’d believe it.

I’m a firm believer to really experience a park like this, you can’t see it from just the rim, but have to go down into it. So I did. I descended near Sunrise Point towards The Queen’s Garden. From there I continued to the junction with the Navajo Loop and then followed the Peekaboo Loop trail up to Bryce Point. A quote from the Apollo 10’s Gene Cernan as they were nine miles above the Moon’s surface and seeing everything in great detail kept coming to mind: “We is down among ‘em”. I was definitely down among the hoodoos. All told I did about 4.1 miles. It was well worth it. I started out all bundled up because of the cold, but partway through stripped off my upper outer layers to avoid overheating.

Once at Bryce Point I caught the shuttle to Inspiration Point. I got off there, got more photos of the Amphitheater and then reboarded the shuttle to the Bryce Canyon Lodge. I wanted to check it out and wasn’t disappointed. All the great National Parks have some really incredible architecture in their lodges.

From there I visited the Visitors Center and then headed back Sunset Point for a ranger led talk (in this case on birds of prey at Bryce. After that I wandered over to my car to get stuff to shower. It has been several days since my shower at the Grand Canyon and may be my last chance before I get home. This was a better deal. $3 for 8 minutes versus $2.50 for 5 minutes at the Grand Canyon.

I headed back to the Visitors Center to refill some water (and after getting on the road and tasting it realizing I should have swapped some my less tasty water for more of the Bryce water. It’s probably the best water I’ve tasted yet in the parks on this trip.)

After that, I honestly wasn’t sure where I was staying. I decided to head towards Page, Arizona and check out Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell and hope to snag a spot in a campground there. Frustratingly, I had finally gotten around to downloading the Reservations.Gov app while on the Bryce Canyon Visitor Center’s Wi-Fi, but it wasn’t working well to actually show me available dates. So after arriving at the closed (due to my lateness) Glen Canyon Dam Visitor’s Center and taking some photos I removed the app and tried again. Just about 1 mile away was Beehive Campground which is a primitive site (i.e. no running water). I figured I’d check it out. I lucked out. There were two available sites left. So after self-registering, I set out to make some dinner and catch up on journalling.

Interesting enough, because there’s no trees here and I’m overlooking Lake Powell, I’d say it’s perhaps one of the prettiest sites I’ve camped at yet.

And now to clean up and set up for bed and see what tomorrow brings.