TUESDAY 28TH - BRYCE CANYON

 

Today we have swapped the extreme experience of Zion National Park for a completely different extreme experience, Bryce Canyon. At Zion, you are on the valley floor looking up. At Bryce you are on top of a plateau looking down into an enormous natural amphitheatre.

 

To get here, we travelled on the Zion Mt. Carmel Scenic Byway, one of a number we will be travelling in the next few days. Like everything around here, it was incredibly scenic but perhaps the highlight was the tunnel. Because our vehicle is as tall as it is, we have to travel in the middle of the road while in the tunnel which means all traffic coming the other way has to be stopped to allow vehicles like ours through. The photo below shows some cutaways used during the construction of the tunnel to dispose of the earth being removed.

Apart from the major tunnel, we also had to navigate a number of minor tunnels built through the natural rock landscape.

Apart from the scenery, the local animals put in a number of appearances including a family of Desert Big Horn sheep, some Mule Deer, Prairie Dogs and some chipmunks.

We had another very virtuous day today in that, after we arrived here, we walked the Rim Trail from Bryce Point, the highest point on the rim at about 8000 feet to Sunset Point, a somewhat lower viewing point on the edge of the Bryce Amphitheatre, enjoying the spectacular views all along the way. The numerous vertical rock formations are known as Hoodoos. Once again we had the use of a shuttle bus which moved everybody around the Park very efficiently.

Our site tonight is in the Ruby's Inn Campground, a commercial camp ground which has a laundry so the washing is up to date – very important.

We are organising a change of itinerary in that we were planning to spend our last night at Long Beach but, knowing what we now know about LA traffic and the road system, that was a really poor idea. We will be doing a quick trip to the Grand Canyon instead and staying away from LA until we really have to go there.

Tomorrow Capitol Reef National Park.