UnCaged Travels: Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park - Utah
July, 2019

We left the Duck Creek area and headed to Bryce Canyon NP for our next adventure.

We drove along Scenic Byway 12 to get to Bryce NP and to our next camp site where we drove through a couple of arches/tunnels near Red Canyon which at first I worried whether the motorhome would make it through - but no problem with lots of room to spare.

We found another great camping spot on Tom Best Spring Road, a mere 11 miles away from the park entrance, which had a great overview of a grassy meadow and the beautiful colors of Red Canyon. This site worked out great to explore the area for the next week and a half.

Bryce Canyon NP is technically not a canyon, but a 56.2 square mile area of amphitheaters that are packed with beautiful colors of orange, red, pink sandstones and white and gray limestone that make endless vistas. The amphitheaters are packed with bazaar formations called hoodoos, spires, temples, castles, pillars, walls, fins, windows and arches. Briefly, all of these formations are due to erosion and it all began about 55 million years ago. The lower pink layer of iron and manganese was deposited as muds and silts in streams and lakes. The upper white layer represents limestone deposited later in the lake system. Over time the layered sediments consolidated into rock and the effects of wind, water and countless frost/thaw cycles took over to carve the unique sculptures by having the harder layers protecting some of the lower softer layers to create the unique shapes.

Natural Bridge

Visitors to Bryce NP can either park and ride a bus throughout the park or drive yourself. We elected to drive the park so we could set our own schedule. We spent two days in the park. The first day we drove the entire park admiring the awe-inspiring views from Sunrise Point to the farthest turn around of Rainbow Point.

View from Rainbow Point

Great view of a window at Black Birch Canyon overlook

View at Bryce Point of a number of 'windows'

More window and arches at Bryce Point

'Wall Street' viewed from Inspiration Point

'Wall Street' up close

'Wall Street and Sunset Point'

The second day we hiked Navajo Loop at Sunset Point. This 1.3 mile loop transverses right down into the rock structures of Thor's Hammer, Two Bridges and Wall Street. There were lots of switchbacks but we survived and enjoyed the beauty and up-close formations.

The 'hoodoo' on the left is named Thor's Hammer

View of the hoodoo's from Navajo trail

The switchbacks on Navajo Trail between a couple of 'Wall Street' walls/fins

Since the weather was a little warmer than we typically like for long hikes we did a couple more short hikes in the area. Mossy Cave is a streamside hike to the Mossy Cave. A natural spring seeps from a rocky cliff, watering plants on the underside of the cave. Also the hike to the cave was up Water Canyon and we were greeted by a waterfall which is normally a dry canyon but has this nice 'creek' which is really irrigation water fed by the Tropic Reservoir irrigation canal dug by Mormon pioneers in the late 1800s and made the task easier by running the water down the natural canyon to the lower elevation fields without digging more canals.

Mossy Cave hanging garden

Water Canyon hoodoo's

Water Canyon waterfall

We had read and heard so much about the Arches Trail so we decided to take this one mile loop and we are glad we did. Many arches in a small area.

The Scenic Byway 12 going to Bryce Canyon NP passes through Red Canyon, part of the Dixie National Forest and over looked by our campsite. This area is similar to Bryce Canyon but on a more smaller version and was a great introduction to the bright red sandstone. A short hike led us up to hoodoos, arches and fins.