We decided to take the very scenic, two hour drive from Zion to Bryce Canyon National Park today to see what we missed in 2023, when we motored through. Plus, our cousin Nancy said it was one of her favorite parks and we’re pretty close! So, we loaded up the hiking stuff, made sure the airstream was locked up and doing its best to stay cool behind us, and we set off at the bright and early crack of 9:30 for Bryce!
Made it to Bryce and this time, we found a parking spot!
After a quick pre-hike potty visit, we set off for the Navajo Trail Loop, a trail marked as an easy / moderate 1.9 mile hike through the hoodoos and canyons of Bryce! According to the googles, hoodoos are tall, thin rock columns, often compared to totem poles, that are formed primarily by erosion. Rain, acid rain, and wind all contribute to their formation, and when melted snow works its way down in to crevices and cracks and it freezes again, it causes the rocks to split and splinter. This is apparently called frost wedging. Once there has been a bunch of frost wedgies, the result is a landscape like you’ll see in the pics. Tall rocky outcroppings surround very narrow canyons, with steep climbs in and out for the adventurous hikers.
Today, we were a part of the group of adventurous hikers. We figured it can’t be too terrible of a hike, as we were following a grandma clutching her giant purse and another woman in a dress and flip flops, but right off the bat the drop offs are SCARY. Logically though, if these people can do this hike in resort wear, then we’re definitely over-dressed in our full hiking gear. Plus we have our CamelBak’s full of water and first aid supplies. Luckily, we didn’t embarrass ourselves more by bringing our hiking sticks. Geez, that would have been truly embarrassing.
The steep, heavily switchbacked trail quickly led down between the massive red rock walls. As we descended, we saw an awful lot of people coming up who were really wheezing and gasping and sweating like they had just finished a marathon! Between that and the very steep drop offs from one switchback trail to the next just below, we were already getting mildly concerned about what lay ahead.
After scrutinizing the people who looked most like they were about to fall over and die, we did note that many of the struggling, wheezing, uphill “hikers” were definitely in “couch potato condition.” This gave us the confidence to just keep going and we would deal with the uphill part of the hike when it happened. We’re old but we’re not in terrible shape.
Just like many of the other national parks we’ve visited on this epic trip, we were just floored by the natural beauty of the place. Around every corner, we saw interesting rock formations, hardscrabble, twisty, pine trees that had grown straight up between two narrow canyons walls, despite likely only getting direct sun for a few hours a day, as it passed by directly overhead, and eroded terrain that must be like a raging river when the snow melts.
Apparently, while rare, hoodoos exist all over the world, but there are more here in Bryce Canyon than anywhere else. And they are everywhere. Really cool.
Hoodoo who?
We gently stepped and sometimes lightly skidded our way down the trail to the bottom, losing elevation with every single step. As we progressed, we noted that most of the people of Walmart, who we had passed at the top were no longer passing us coming out. Huh, they must have turned around. (Note, the subtle foreshadowing!)
We reached the bottom of the loop, which curved clockwise to begin the climb back up. It didn’t take very long at all before the light chatter stopped completely and heavy breathing started. Mind you, we were back up at 7,000 feet or so, and us Florida flatlanders were just not used to this.
We climbed and climbed, passing neat rock formations and finding rare shady spots to just breath for a bit. The number of pictures slowed down considerably, especially the ones where Ben, trotting along ahead, would cheerfully say “Smile, Ann!” and Ann would mutter something darkly under her breath before grimacing for the camera. Before long, Ben was huffing and puffing too, and the camera BS came to a stall.
As we climbed, we started passing those same clueless folks that had no idea what they were about to get in to! We even passed a big old dude, just raw-dogging the hike in a tank top, sweatpants and sandals, with no water, no hat, no walking sticks. We would have warned him, but we were too busy doing our own impression of couch potatoes, breathing heavy, looking kind of desperate, and sucking down water from the camelbaks we were both wearing and CURSING ourselves for not bringing our walking sticks. DUMB DUMB DUMB.
We eventually made it back up to the top of the loop at the parking area, incident free we might add (there was panic in the last 1/4 mile of the climb but it’s hard to poop your pants when you’re dying!). We headed for the truck, then to the visitor center to purchase our official visit sticker for the Airstream and then began our two hour drive back to Zion. While invigorating and great exercise, it was face meltingly hot and we were ready for a cool drive back in the AC.
We cruised back towards Zion on the same beautiful highways that we had driven that morning. We had passed what appeared to be a forest fire on the way up and had googled it to see what was going on. Turns out, it was a 1900 acre fire that had been burning for three days. We saw a helicopter flying overhead with the little water bucket thing, so the forest service was all over it. All we could do was watch from a very far distance as the fire quickly spread through uninhabited forest. Got some neat pics though…
Just as we were about to go back through the long tunnel leading in to Zion, we saw a herd of bighorn sheep just chilling on the side of the road. What is a group of desert bighorn sheep called? A band? Who comes up with these? Anyway, there they were.
Finally, we passed through the Zion – Carmel Tunnel and made our way back to the airstream far below to just chill for the rest of the afternoon. Here is a video of us coming through the tunnel.
Not sure what day we will publish this, as it usually takes us a couple days to finish writing, editing, and posting these little stories, but in our universe, it is Fathers Day today. We wish all of the fathers in our vast audience of about nine readers a great, albeit belated, Fathers Day! While we would have loved to spend the day with our fantastic adult kids, they have to work and we don’t, so there you go.
TaterTotTales 