Last Day at Bryce Canyon Area

May 31, 2016  Bryce Canyon area.

We decided to take one last visit to Bryce Canyon but took a little detour first.  The tunnels in Red Canyon were very pretty today.  There wasn't a lot of traffic and we managed to get a couple of good pictures without cars and people.  Gerry got her stamp from the Red Canyon visitor center and added it to her collection.

1st Tunnel

2nd Tunnel

 The Tropic Reservoir sign showed it was a 7 mile dirt road drive to the area and we couldn't pass that up.  I had downloaded 4 geocaches near the reservoir and we found one quickly.  However, the next one was quite a challenge.  It was down a narrow dirt road that became even smaller as we drove about a mile or so to the cache.  Parts of the "road" were washed out and it was rough and we actually needed our "all wheel" drive tranny to kick in.  All we could think of was that we had to come back the same way.

I parked near the cache and then started up a small hill to retrieve it.  The GPS signal was bouncing around.   It finally settled down and I found the cache that was last found in October 2015.  Not a lot of traffic in the area I presumed.   Gerry was worried about me and started to look for me when I came down the hill.

Cache hidden in center tree

 We had driven part way around Tropic Reservoir on the West side and I didn't want to back track so we kept going.  Eventually, we arrived at the feeder creek and crossed over a large culvert to make our way back to the East side of the lake.

Tropic Reservoir

There was another cache near a spring and we looked for it but couldn't find it.  It may have been muggled or we just didn't look hard enough.  The spring was fenced off to keep the cattle away from it.  Gerry said the water tasted cool and good so she filled up a water bottle to take with us.

Nice hat

 We ran out of time the other day when we went to Bryce Canyon and missed three of the overlooks.  Gerry wanted to see Thor's Hammer and Anvil so we zoomed over to Bryce Canyon to check it out.

We were a little surprised to see so many hikers making their way down the trails into the canyon at such a late hour.  I imagine they are in better hiking condition than we are so it must have worked out fine for them.

Thor's Hammer

Gerry took this nice panorama of the view from Fairyland Canyon overlook.  It is hard to capture the beauty of the area and show how immense it is.  

We checked out the Tropic, UT area nearby and picked up some more geocaches and decided to call it a day.  By this time it was late and we were worn out from all the walking.  

If you haven't seen Bryce Canyon and the area, then you should put it on your "bucket list" to visit at least once.  We have been there 4-5 times and still enjoy seeing all the hoodoos and the beauty of the canyon.

We decided to extend another day at the campground and just take it easy and rest up.  I did manage to wash the car and remove the 100 lbs of dust from it, both inside and outside.  Other than that we just relaxed and enjoyed the nice weather.

 

Byrce Canyon & Red Canyon, Utah

May 26, 2016

Memorial Day weekend is fast approaching and we decided to take a drive to Bryce Canyon to try and avoid the mob scene approaching.  The day started off poorly with lousy weather and we almost decided to call it off.  Thankfully, we didn't as it turned out to be a nice day.

We are only about 5 miles from Red Canyon and stopped there first.  There are two tunnels on the road and they photograph very well.  We waited as long as we could to avoid having vehicles in the photos.  Luck was on our side and we got the shots we wanted.

The red rocks are beautiful and sort of reminded us of the Sedona, AZ area.  There are numerous hiking trails in the area along with a great biking/hiking path that meanders along for miles.  

Gerry and I both like to get off the highway and take dirt forest roads to see what is out there.  In this case there was a geocache hidden in the rocks and Gerry "volunteered" to find it.  She is in the middle of the picture trying to stay warm and sign the cache log.  We continued down the road to the point where it got so rough that it was time to turn around.  If we would have had our old Jeep we could have continued more to the back country.

 Next stop on our agenda was to tour the Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park to enjoy it's beauty.  We wound up picking the right day since they weren't so busy that finding parking spaces was a chore. 

They say you look up at Zion Nat'l Park and look down at Bryce to see the hoodoos.  There are a number of scenic view parking areas and we decided to drive the 17 miles to the top and then work our way down.   The views were fantastic even though it was a cloudy day.  We took over 200 photos and won't bore you with all of them, so I selected a few from each viewing area.

Natural Bridge

Panorama view

Hoodoos galore

More hoodoos

 

Another bridge

Yep, we were winded at this point

Forming another arch

Nice balancing act

 We spent so much time looking at the beautiful views that we ran out of time and didn't finish seeing all that we wanted to see.  Rather than continue and not get nice photos we decided that we would return on Tuesday morning after many of the tourists leave.

There are numerous hiking trails in Byrce Canyon but we barely make it walking on level ground.  The air sure gets thin around 8-9 thousand feet.  So we will leave the hikes to the younger set and just enjoy the views.

We were here in 1995 the first time and I remembered an overly officious volunteer giving me a bad time about parking our 30ft motorhome in the site.  We drove around the campground and found the site with a 32ft motorhome in the space.  I hope the volunteer didn't give him a bad time.

The campgrounds are full of rental units and you see people from all over the world touring the canyon.  It's like being close to the United Nations and hearing all the different languages being spoken.  

We had a great day and finally headed back to the RV park for a late dinner of stuffed peppers that Gerry had prepared the day before.  They really hit the spot and we relaxed a while and finally went to bed earlier than usual.   Boy, this rving is a tough job.

Add this place to your "bucket list" if you haven't seen it.  You will love the place.  Goodnight!