Andy Altman Photography

Notes from April, 2006 Trip to Central Arizona to Southern Utah

05/28/07

Bryce Canyon National Park

While one of the smaller national parks, Bryce Canyon packs a lot of quality into its diminutive size.  Frost, rain and wind have combined for bizarre erosion.  The park contains numerous (14 by one count) horseshoe shaped "amphitheaters" eroded out of the edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau.  The canyons, fins and hoodoos (spires) reveal colorful layers of purple, red, lavender, yellow and pure white which all change as the sun moves across the sky.  Numerous overlooks give great views, but walks on the maintained trails going down around, between and through the geology are not to be missed.

For our first morning in the park, we had planned to hike the Navajo Loop, but when we got to Sunset Point we found one side of the loop closed due to a slide.  Luckily, the portion through "Wall Street" was open, so we decided to descend that way and return via the Queens Garden Trail.  Overall, a 3 mile loop with about 550 feet of elevation change.  A series of switchbacks and one tunnel brought us to Wall Street with hoodoos and fins towering over a hundred feet above us.  The path goes through the Narrows, where the sides squeeze in to about 5 feet.  At this point, gust of wind were knocking sand and small rocks down on us from the top of the fins!  These didn't seem to hazardous, but I was glad not to see anything larger coming down.

  Switchbacks Descending to Wall Street

The Narrows of Wall Street        The view up from Wall Street 

After a short stretch through the Narrows, it's quite a shock to see large trees struggling up to the sun in the narrow canyon.  A little further and the bottom of the canyon opens up and much of the amphitheater comes into view.

The path continues across the bottom of the amphitheater, following a dry wash at times.  This portion of the trail is mostly level with spectacular views in every direction. 

As the trail starts to climb back up to the rim, it once again become maze like.  The trail frequently disappears through tunnels, narrows and around hoodoos.  It easy to follow the trail, but hard to guess where it will lead.

The wind became more prominent as we climbed.  The jackets that we had removed earlier, came back on, even with the effort of the uphill hike. On exposed knobs, it was difficult to stand still long enough to take photos.  The trail tops out at Sunrise Point with an easy 1/2 mile walk back to Sunset Point.  This is one of the most spectacular hikes I can imagine

At lunch, Hope notices that it appeared foggy out the window.  After a longer view, she declared it was snowing.  Incredulous, we went outside to a white out.  The ground was too warm for it to stick, but it was quite impressive for 30 minutes.  After lunch, the kids decided to take it easy back in the room.  Hope & I put on our fleece, hat and gloves and drove to the southern end of the park and stopped at the various overlooks on the way back.  We later found out that the wind gusts reach 50 miles per hour and at lunch the temperature dropped from the mid 40's to the low 30's in about an hour.

Our last stop was at Bryce Point, arguably the most scenic overlook.  It was mid afternoon so the light was fairly flat, but it convince me to get up for at least one sunrise.  Notice the difference in contrast and color in the two photos below.   The sunrise image is one of my favorites from the trip.

Bryce Amphitheater from Bryce Point (afternoon)

Bryce Amphitheater from Bryce Point (sunrise)

One last note, sunrise in Bryce can be quite chilly.  This morning, the temperature dropped to 15 degrees right at sunrise, about 40 degrees below where the high would end up.