Bryce: Land of the Hoodoos

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Bryce: Land of the Hoodoos

Bryce National Park was another adventure in amazing scenery. Here is our bottom line on seeing the park.

A good first stop is the Visitor Center (elevation 7894 ft.). You could make this stop later in your visit, but if you see the film and museum first, you'll know what features to look for when hiking or touring around the park. And if you have kids traveling with you, be sure to get them involved in the Junior Ranger program at the start of your visit.

The central part of the Park is called the Amphitheater Region. A free, but not mandatory, shuttle runs between the main locations along Bryce Canyon. These include the Visitor Center, Bryce Lodge, a few campgrounds and the popular Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration and Bryce Point overlooks. Outside the Amphitheater, the scenic drive continues south to the end of the canyon. Probably the most common way to tour Bryce is to make the scenic drive. The National Park Service suggests you drive straight through to Rainbow Point at the end of the drive. Then, on the return trip, you can pull off to the right side of the road into the many scenic overlook points. All of the scenic pullouts are located on the right side of the road when headed northbound, so it makes sense to do it this way.

Plan on at least two to three hours to make the Bryce Canyon drive. Make sure you have the Park Guide (called The Hoodoo) and the brochure, so you have a map of the stops and some descriptions of various viewpoints. You can also refer to the map so you know which stops have restrooms or picnic areas. Take a lunch or snack and make it a leisurely tour. Walk some of the trails along the way and it can be a full day.

As we have found with most of the National Parks, it is worth taking the time do some exploring on foot. If you are up to doing a hike, do so. If a long hike isn't your thing, you can walk along part of the Rim Trail within the Amphitheater section and take a shuttle back to your starting point. There are also walkways at some of the overlook points that provide awesome views. In particular, Inspiration Point has a short but steep walk up to its highest overlook point that is well worth the climb.

We took two moderate hikes that gave us a close-up perspective on the interesting hoodoos in Bryce Canyon:

We really enjoyed the Fairyland Loop in the northern part of the Park. We started at Sunrise Point, headed out into the canyon to the Tower Bridge formation. Then we continued around the trail to Fairyland Point and along the rim back to Sunrise Point. This is about an 8-mile loop. You could do it in the other direction. Or if you start at Fairyland Point, you have the benefit of being able to stop at the Sunrise Point General Store and restrooms. There is no shuttle between Sunrise Point and Fairyland. The total elevation change is about 2300 feet. Whatever direction you choose to go, there is no getting around the fact that what goes down must come up.
Even though we had some climbs to make in the last leg of this hike, we made great time for this final 2.5 miles along the rim. Might have had something to do with the looming thunderstorm and not-too-distant lightening strikes. We moved quickly, with regular glances at black skies to see if we were outpacing the summer storm. Motivation made up for sore feet.
We started our other hike at Bryce Point, another lookout point with a great view. We took Peekaboo Loop Trail to Navajo to Queen's Garden Trail. We had a choice of hiking the western or eastern side of Peekaboo Loop - we hiked on the western side, which took us through some wooded (and shaded) areas. When you get to Navajo Loop, you might decide to do the entire loop (but you will be climbing up to the rim and back down again), or just walk a section of it and continue to Queen's Garden. When we were there, part of Navajo Trail was closed due to a rockslide near the Wall Street formation. We were able to walk the quarter mile up to where the rockslide was, which was worth it just to see how the canyon narrows at Wall Street. We then retraced this quarter mile to get back to the intersection with Queen's Garden.
This Queen's Garden part of the trail took us through some more interesting hoodoos and then we made the climb back to Sunrise Point, where the trail ends. At Sunrise Point, we took the shuttle back to the car at Bryce Point. The way we did the trail made it a total of about 4.5 miles, with about a 1700-foot elevation change. You can combine the Navajo, Queen's Garden and Peekaboo Trails in other configurations.

Around the park, we found ourselves singing the modified lyrics to the Cole Porter standard, You Do Something to Me... you know the one that goes .."..you do that hoodoo that you do so well" . We wondered if anyone else sings that song while in Bryce.

There are a variety of campground choices in and around Bryce National Park. We stayed in an RPI membership park in Panguitch because it was cost effective for us to do so. Other alternatives include the North campground and Sunset Campgrounds (no hook-ups) in the park itself. Right outside the park gates and accessible by the shuttle is Ruby's Campground.
Bryce Pioneer Village is a Happy Camper Park in the little town of Tropic. There are several campgrounds in Panguitch, including a KOA.

There is also a campground in Red Canyon - another scenic area between Panguitch and Bryce. Red Canyon has a Visitor Center that showcases the Dixie National Forest with an extensive photo display of local flora. There are some hiking trails in Red Canyon and a 5-mile paved bicycle path.

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