Today brought us to southern Utah. We drove through Provo, home to Brigham Young University. It is certainly an upscale nice looking town. Continueing south, staying off the interstates has proven once again to be the only way to go. They are nice drives through beautiful places. We ended the day in Bryce Canyon. It is a small park but worth the drive.
Next on our walk, native to Bryce was this. Watch where you step, stay out of brush and listen for the rattle.
Before you enter the park, you are encourage to park in the one road town of Bryce Canyon Town and take a bus. The park from top to bottom is 17 miles. Really only the first 4 miles look like this picture, the rest is just a drive with a few outlooks, looking back at this. The parking lots at the lookouts within the 4 miles is minimal. In 1875, Ebenezer Bryce came to this valley to live and to harvest timber. He had a small herd of sheep and said it was a terrible place to lose one.
This is the view down from Sunset Point. Take notice of the worn path, I'll tell you about it in a bit.
Remember that path? Well, I want you to know that Dave and I walked all the way down it into the canyon. It was 8000 ft down. Once at the bottom, it was a loop around and then you guessed it, what goes down must come up. When I got to the top, I felt like Rocky Balboa at the top of the stairs in Phillie. It was a good way for me to face my fear of heights....NOT
Those pillars are called HooDoos. They are made by water constantly freezing, falling and thawing. On average, water freezes and thaws and freezes and thaws 200 days a year and creates these. As it runs or drips into fissures and cracks, and then freezes, it breaks the rock away.
The time was about 5:30, the sun was still very high in the sky but the rangers consider it sunset and the best time of the day to see the colors in the canyon change about every 5 minutes.
Just Spectacular!!! I Love it!
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