Southern Utah & NV, 12 days & 1825 m. Days 6 & 7

Day 6
Great sleep and 30° this morning at Kodachrome. Our plan today is to leave the camper parked and take a tour of Bryce Canyon NP about 20 miles to the SE. The senior pass was a score again at the park entry. Bryce is a one sided canyon. You drive along the top on an 18 mile scenic drive and look down into the park at 14 viewpoints. It is recommended that you drive 18 miles to the end at Rainbow Point and stop at the view areas on the way back so you don't have to cross traffic, so that's what we did. We took a hike on the Bristlecone loop trail and stopped at Yovimpa Point. The word scenic used in reference to Bryce Canyon is an immeasurable understatement.

The vertical rock formations are called hoodoos, different from spires due to their varying thicknesses. The scale can't be captured in a photo. The trees in the picture are 40-60' mature spruce.

We had lunch on this sawn log bench with views 1500' down and 100 miles out. Munched our sandwiches and stared in awe. Oh, BTW the weather was perfect as it was for our entire trip.

We stopped at every viewpoint. Bryce is different in that you look down into it. It is much harder to interact with as there are few trails and they drop hundreds of feet into the canyon so the hike out is brutal and more than Jennifer or I wanted to attempt.

                                Inspiration Point is well named and absolutely incredible to see.

We headed out of the main park but we had one more stop on the way back to the camper. Off of Hwy 12 there is a trail to Mossy Cave which is not that special but the waterfall a little farther up the trail is spectacular.

Now sometimes the viewer may not see the effort that goes into a postable picture so here is a little behind the scenes look at "getting the shot."

Jennifer kept saying I was crazy and that it was a 100' drop. I didn't really listen and I was pretty sure the drop wasn't much over 40'. But I got the shot that I wanted showing the water falling.

 

 Day 7

 Great sleep. 30° this morning so I turned the furnace up and made coffee. Our plan for the day was to hike in Kodachrome on a loop trail. It was the type of hike I like because we were constantly in new terrain with different stuff to see around every bend. The spires are almost unbelievable.

It was a great trail about 4 miles total and not much elevation change. A couple of miles in was the spot labeled "Indian Cave". At 1st we thought, "Wow thousand yr old hand prints", but when we placed our hands in the prints we realized the rock was very soft and the prints were made by hikers like us.

A spire is smooth and cylindrical and a hoodoo is like a spire but with varying widths and in Kodachrome there seems to be hybrids.

All of these formations are huge. The juniper in the background is over 30' tall. A loop off the loop we started on took us to the secret passage. It's a really cool slot canyon that dead ends.

On the way back to the main trail we came across the narrowest slot canyon we'd ever seen. The chunk of rock on the left is the size of a 747 and the other side is a solid cliff. The opening is maybe 3" wide by 15' tall. I didn't fit.

We hiked up to Panorama Point and you could see Bryce Canyon to the west and into Arizona to the south. We came across this guy looking south. He was pretty serious looking.

On the way back  we saw different formtions yet. These mounds/ petrified teepees were pretty neat.

We got back to the truck and drove out of Kodachrome and into the GSENM down Cottonwood Canyon road to Grosvenor Arch. Pretty good place to have lunch.

Back at the camper we ate a great spaghetti dinner sitting outside as a full moon rose. The international space station orbited by, brighter than the brightest star and 3 minutes from horizon to horizon. It was a good day.