Bryce Canyon to Grand Staircase National Monument
Oh the joys of a hot shower after a chilly nights’s sleep! Once the sun made its appearance we warmed up pretty quick. Had some breakfast then headed into the national park. Bryce has been on the list largely because of other people’s recommendations. We had no idea what we would encounter, and perhaps that is what made it all the more magical! Below the rim a canyon of hoodoos surprise their audience but look as if they are the audience filling a grandstand. After we mustered up the ability to close our jaws that had dropped in awe, we set off down a squiggly trail that leads through the hoodoos. Ancient tradition believes that the hoodoos were actually people encased in stone, but would come alive one day and walk away. It was fun to imagine this and creatively try to identify faces amongst the tall red spires. It is amazingly quite in this amphitheater of stone, each sound is illuminated by its surroundings, bird calls, people chatting, airplanes overhead, each sound is distinct and very clear. We stopped by the queen’s garden to admire a rock that looks surprisingly like Queen Elizabeth. Then found the two natural bridges, arched into the stone. Continued to hike amongst these giants then into a canyon with Walter Wiggle-esc switch backs taking us to the top and a view of Thor’s Hammer with a landscape shot of the whole valley with surrounding mountains. We just could not get enough, we stopped by inspiration point on our way out of this magical place just to gaze a little longer at the ridiculousness of this natural beauty. From here we headed toward our third Utah National Park, Capitol Reef. But after a full day falling in love with hoodoos, the sun was beginning to descend. Traveling through Escalante and the Grand Staircase National Monument, for a second time in the same day we were blindingly stunned by the glory of this land. At the top of the climb we decided to pull onto a dirt road with dispersed camping sites. Pulled up five feet from the spectacular view of everything below, completely alone on top of a mountain with a view of a national monument! We couldn’t get over how lucky we felt! Popped out our chairs to watch the sun say farewell till tomorrow, cooked some dinner and talked by the fire before reading ourselves to sleep tucked toasty in our bed.
