June 11th - 14th, 2021
There is only one way to describe Bryce Canyon National Park and it is OTHER WORLDLY.
This might be my favorite National Park yet! It's such a unique place, and like nowhere I've ever been or seen in my life. One of the biggest drivers of this road trip was to see the profound beauty of our own country, and this included the elusive desert parks of Arizona and Utah.
We did three great hikes at Bryce. The first was a short, 3 mile introduction to the park, which offered a lot of reward for little physical effort. We did this hike just before sunset, which proved to be the best time of the day to visit the park with bearable heat and crowds. While wandering the trail, I imagined myself in The Little Mermaid... the red, orange and white colored hoodoos (tall, thin spires of rock) melting into shapes that looked like palaces and bridges found "unda the sea." At 8000+ ft. above sea level, this park had lots of interesting vegetation, too! Much of it, including the small bushes and grasses, reminded me of seaweed and coral reefs. Pretty neat, and a great place to let the imagination run wild. I could go on, but I'll let the pictures do the talking...I took about 1000... lol. Click here to see more photos of our adventures at Bryce.
The greatest challenge we faced in Bryce was the constant sun and heat, which topped out at over 90 degrees while we were there. While it was a dry heat, we learned quickly that at high elevations the sun is STRONG. Despite applying sunscreen like crazy, drinking a ton of water, and wearing our new lightweight, sweat wicking, sun-shirts (which we picked up in Colorado and Arizona), I still managed to get pretty dehydrated after one of our longer, more exposed, 9 mile hiking adventures. I was ultimately okay, but suffered a not-so-fun migraine that night.
Our hands and lips were also cracking and swelling no matter how many times a day we applied lotion and lip balm. It was just that dry. Being from the seacoast of New Hampshire, I honestly don't know how people live in this climate! It made me greatly appreciate the humidity of home, and I told Ian I would never complain about the cold again...riiight.
We spent 3 days total in the park, embarking on a different hike each day. By the end of this stretch, our hearts were full, but our feet were swelling like crazy. Because of the heat and altitude, and we were starting to get some pretty gnarly blisters. As a result, we decided to take a day off Bryce, and visit nearby Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. Here, we did a more rugged 2 mile hike around the petrified forest. I've never seen petrified wood in the "wild," so I was quite fascinated by the 135 - 155 MILLION year old trees.
The appropriately titled Sleeping Rainbow trail that we did features many large and colorful specimens of petrified wood. Some of them still maintained their log-like shapes and textures, except for the fact that they are solid rock.
The colors were bright and varied, and were a result of the presence of minerals like iron and manganese when the trees were buried for millions of years, without oxygen, deep in the earth. Layers of orange, red, yellow, blue, black and purple shone like gemstones....just beautiful!
We took a selfie with the largest piece of petrified wood in the park (couldn't resist hugging that tree!), and then set up our hammocks in the shade next to the park's reservoir while we researched trails for Zion National Park, our next stop on the tour.
Not going to lie, I was a bit apprehensive about going to Zion during the greatest heat wave on record in the Southwestern United States. Temperatures were forecasted to be 102 - 112 each of the days we were there, YIKES! After little debate, we decided Zion would be our last desert park. We opted to pretty much skip Joshua Tree (forecasted to be upwards of 120 degrees!!!) and head to the cool coast and visit friends and family in San Diego post Zion.
Oh, another note... we finally got our new sink fixture, and have a working kitchen sink again! Big win after doing dishes in the (tiny) bathroom sink for over a week. It's really nice to have both power and water in the our kitchen again. Life on the road is never dull, and it certainly makes you appreciate the modern day conveniences that we often take for granted.
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