Monday, May 17, 2010

May 15, 2010 - Bryce Canyon National Park

Matt decided to go for his sunrise shoot, it was 24 degrees and surprise, surprise, I elected not to go.  I started having problems with the water when I got up so I guessed that the water had frozen overnight and turned on the pump to use our internal water tanks instead of the campground hookup.  More on this issue in the next post.

It was another beautiful day so we decided to go for our last big hike in the park.  It was 32 degrees when we started the hike at Fairyland Canyon so we were bundled up with lots of layers that we got to shed during the hike as the day warmed to about 59 degrees.  The hike was beautiful through a canyon that was more lush than the others.  Still not a drop of water in any of the runoff/stream beds, but lots more trees.  We continued the hike from Fairyland Point where we dropped into the canyon and then wove around and in several groupings of hoodoos.  We climbed back out of the canyon at Sunrise Point and then took the Rim trail from Sunrise back to Fairyland to complete the loop.  Overall, the hike was 7.7 miles and almost 1600 feet of elevation gain and loss.  We took lots of pictures so it took us about 4 1/2 hours to complete the whole thing.

 This was a wall of hoodoo's forming as we started our hike.

What a cool tree....

And the view from the other side of the same tree...

What beautiful canyon walls...

Some hoodoo's are short & fat while others are tall & skinny...

Not much soil anywhere for these poor little trees to grow in...

Hoodoo's everywhere...



After two big hikes in two days, our legs were a little sore and we were a bit tired so we went off to Subway for lunch (not many restaurant choices here due to all the tour buses).  We hung out at the RV in the afternoon and evening and tried to figure out what our water problem was.

This is the last day we will spend in Bryce Canyon National Park.  Click HERE for a link to some of our favorite photos from this park so you can see them in larger sizes than what has been here on the blog.

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