Day 7: Bryce Canyon

As is becoming normal on this holiday, we had an early start again this morning with the alarm set for 6am. Bryce Canyon National Park, which we were visiting today, is not as prone to overcrowding as Zion, but it can still get pretty busy and parking spaces are limited. We were hoping to avoid the busiest time of the day – and also bad weather forecast for the afternoon – by getting into the park for sunrise.

Luckily – and as the name suggests – Bryce Canyon City where we are staying is only a couple of miles from the entrance to the park. Sunrise was scheduled to be at around 7am this morning and we got into the park around 06.45, easily getting a parking space. Slightly controversially, given that we were coming to see the sunrise, we'd chosen to visit a viewpoint called Sunset Point, rather than a similar place down the road called Sunrise Point. I'd read online that Sunset Point was slightly less crowded and that the views were just as good as from Sunrise Point.

Within a few minutes we had walked to the viewpoint and had our first glimpse down into the canyon.

It was a bit cloudy this morning and while we could see the sky starting to get tinged with red, there was no sign of the sun yet.

Bryce Canyon was one of the national parks that I was really excited about visiting and the first views really didn't disappoint.

As the sky began to get brighter it really brought out the bright red colours of the rocks below us.

A couple of minutes after 7am, the sun made its appearance on the horizon.

We've already watched sunrise at the Grand Canyon this week and it's hard to beat that as a sunrise location, but this was pretty amazing too.

We attempted to take a sunrise selfie, but slightly mistimed it so didn't get much of the sun in

Never mind, it was still a really cool experience

Once the sun had risen we went back to the car to put on our walking boots, in preparation for the hike we were planning to do this morning. We spotted a beautiful little bird sitting on the sign for Sunset Point, but not 100% sure what it was. It definitely had a bluish tinge!

As the sign indicates, Bryce Canyon is at quite a high elevation; 8,000 ft or approximately 2,400 metres. That meant it really felt quite cold this morning.

I'd worn long sleeves and leggings, but Tim was braving it in shorts and t-shirt.

Our walk started by following the rim of what is known as the Bryce Canyon “amphitheatre”.

It's a giant, bowl-shaped area, filled with thousands of tall rock spires known as “hoodoos”.

Although it has “canyon” in the name, this isn't technically a canyon.

Instead, it's a plateau where over time a combination of water and ice has eroded the rocks to make the steep drops and strange formations we can see today.

A helpful info board explained to us that it takes the rain and melting snow a century to erode somewhere between one and four feet of rock.

Although I always imagined Utah to be a warm, deserty kind of place, the elevation here means that night-time temperatures are below freezing for half of the year.

That gives plenty of opportunity for water within any cracks in the rock to freeze and expand overnight, gradually increasing the size of the cracks.

Over time, the cracks become windows within the rock. You can see one in the photo below.

Eventually the roof of the window collapses, leaving the pillar structures we could see so many of.

Different layers of rock erode at different rates, ultimately resulting in these hoodoos made from pillars of softer rock, with a cap of harder rock on top.

There are more hoodoos at Bryce Canyon than anywhere else in the world.

The rock here is a mixture of sandstone and limestone, which are relatively easy for water and ice to break apart.

We could certainly see the stripes of different coloured rocks in the distance, with some whiter rocks contrasting against the more common red colour.

After walking from Sunset Point to Sunrise Point along the rim, our route began to take us quite steeply downhill as we followed a trail called the Queen's Garden Loop.

This was supposed to be any easy trail with great views, but I didn't end up finding it quite as easy as I'd anticipated.

The downhill slope of the path was quite steep at times and the path was quite gravelly underfoot, as you can probably tell from this chipmunk photo!

I'd have felt happier if I'd brought my poles but unfortunately I'd left them in the boot, so I just had to make the best of it.

The views were incredible, though!

We experimented in a couple of places with taking selfies, which is so easy with my new selfie stick.

Some of them turned out pretty well

Today is another day where we have taken an enormous number of photos overall, because everywhere was just so beautiful.

As we progressed further down the trail, we were able to see the amphitheatre from different angles.

And although there were other people around, it wasn't currently too busy.

As we got lower down, I didn't enjoy some of the steep corners on the trail!

But soon we'd made it about as far down as we were going to go.

The landscape and the slopes became a bit gentler.

Eventually the Queen's Garden trail came to an end at this particularly unusual rock formation.

From here we were following a second trail called the Navajo Loop Trail, which would ultimately take us back up to the rim of the canyon.

There were some more spectacular hoodoos along this trail.

The path itself was really interesting, leading us through a couple of little doorways in the rocks.

You had to crouch a bit to get through ...

... before emerging to more amazing views ...

... like these.

This part of the trail wasn't scary like the initial steep downhill had been, although it may look like it was from this photo.

For most of the way it was actually quite wide and easy to walk on.

We walked through another doorway in the rock ...

... and the views continued to get better.

You could see the stripe of colour through the rocks really clearly here.

As we continued on our way, the trail began to get a bit busier and we started meeting people who were coming round the loop in the opposite direction. It still felt quieter than Zion, though.

We also started to see more and more trees, which grow in this part of Utah because the air is cooler.

We reached a hoodoo known as “Queen Victoria”.

This one is supposed to bear resemblance to a statue of Queen Victoria in London. I can't say I'd have noticed it if it hadn't been explained by an info board!

From here the route became flat for a while, taking us through the trees.

The day was getting brighter and it was starting to feel a bit warmer than it had first thing.

We knew it was only a matter of time before the path started going steeply uphill ...

... and soon it started to slope upwards a little bit.

All of a sudden, a very friendly chipmunk crossed our path!

This one didn't seem anywhere near as timid as the ones that were running away when they heard us coming at the Grand Canyon.

I guess maybe people feed them here, though there was a sign in the car park threatening a fine of $100 for feeding wildlife.

After the chipmunk, the steep uphill started.

We started climbing up a series of steps between the rocks.

So far so good and I was starting to think it might have been easier to come down this way and go up the way we'd come down.

But then the trail got significantly steeper and I was glad we were going up rather than down.

The path zigzagged via a series of really steep switchbacks.

I normally prefer photos without other people in but in this instance I think people are helpful to demonstrate the path!

This part of the trail is called “Wall Street”, because you're walking between such high walls of rock.

It was quite an exhausting climb, but eventually we made it to the top.

And the view at the top was fantastic

We were now back where we'd started – at Sunset Point – and with the sun being higher in the sky, the colours of the rocks were even more impressive than they had been at sunrise.

We'd been hiking for a couple of hours at this point and it was around 09.15. We set off back towards the car, in the hope that we could make it to the hotel before the free breakfast buffet closed at 10.00. On the way out of the park we passed a family of deer