Mel & Trinity

Bryce Canyon National Park is beautiful!

The park’s guide book describes the canyons as ‘Poetry in Stone’. I would say that is a pretty accurate description.

The scenery is varied but the Amphitheatre, which the park is best know for, looks like thousands of grey and pink coloured ‘Stalagmites’ in a valley. The photo below will give you a feel of it.

The park is not that big so I drove through it on the day I arrived, which was Friday 24th July, and I visited all the look out points. It gives a feel for the varying landscape and rock formations with the park, which are formed by water and ice.

As I wanted to get s good feel for the U.S. (in all senses) I’ve been mixing up my accommodation between camping, I stayed in a hostel one night, AirBnB and motels. It’s been a good mix.

My plan was to stay at Bryce Canyon on Friday and Saturday nights, so I booked into Rubi RV and campsite for the two nights. I hadn’t quite expected the temperature drop during the night (it went down to below 5 degrees Celsius), so between getting a little chilly and having a lot on my mind, I didn’t sleep that well on Friday.

Needless to say it was a great excuse to get up early on Saturday morning and hit the hiking trails. Boy did I hit them! My first trail was The Queens Garden Trail which runs from Sunrise to Sunset Points. I was so excited when I got to the bottom of the trail that I felt like I wanted to run. I’ve always had a bit of difficulty containing my excitement! This was me getting very excited but how can you not looking at this view.

Of course, all my excitement running up and down the trail attracted some attention. This is how I met Elaine and Dave. They are originally from Scotland but currently live in San Francisco. I ended up walking around with them for about an hour talking about the U.S. and all sorts of things. It was so lovely to get to know them better and to explore the trail with them. Incidentally, as I was writing this blog post I received an email from them. How amazing is that! It really made me smile.

I didn’t get a photo of Elaine and Dave (I need to get better at this) but Elaine kindly took a photo of me along the trail. This photo will always make me think of them.

After doing this trail and the Navajo Loop Trail, which spears off the Queens Trail, I drove Trinity to Bryce Point to walk the Peekaboo Loop Trail. After about 8 miles of walking up and down the canyons I was knackered to say the least! I’d walked about 4.5-5 hours in total. Probably the best workout I’ve had since my indoor cricket training. It even topped doing Burpies (Nana and Russell I’m thinking of you here). It was strangely satisfying.

While I sat in some shade having a rest I realised I’d seen all I’d wanted to see in the park and I had no desire for another night’s camping, so I decided to move onto my next destination. What a great decision that turned out to be but I will cover this in my next blog.