Another day, another early (ish) start. This time we were packing up the car and leaving the beautiful Zion Mountain Ranch behind and making our way to Bryce Canyon for a few hours in the park followed by an onwards journey to Torrey, near Capitol Reef National Park.
With the car packed, we said goodbye to Itchy and set off for Bryce just after 8am. After a couple of hours we arrived at the visitor center, checked out the hikes and viewpoints, grabbed a map and decided to take the car round the park rather than the shuttle.
As Bryce Canyon was all on our right hand side as we drove down the Park, we went to our furthest point down that we wanted to go to and then worked our way back up the Park via a series of stops. First stop was Bryce Point and our first glimpse of what is a pretty bloody amazing sight! The colors, scale and amazing rock formations (know locally as hoodoos) really do have to be seen to be believed. It also managed to give Tracy the willies with a few steep drops by the side of the path.
Second stop was just a little further round the canyon rim at Inspiration Point. Again, it looked amazing but at this stop there were hundreds of little midges that kept landing all over us – apart from Tracy – so after a few photos were snapped it was back in the car and round to Sunset Point.
There was obviously an emergency of some sort kicking off here as there were medical people and all sorts buzzing around the car park. Unperturbed we set off on a hike on Navajo Loop which took us down to the canyon floor and back up again. Toby was not happy about this hike! It was too hot, too steep and too far. He was tired two minutes after we left and didn’t want to go! Despite all these protests we set off down the winding path through the stunning canyon trails.
We stopped at Thors Hammer – the most photographed feature in Bryce Canyon and carried on down the steep climb. The sun was beating down and regular drink breaks were required. After a while we reached the bottom and, as beautiful as it was, what it really needed was a nice burbling river running through the bottom of the canyon. There wasn’t one though – it is a waterless canyon.
With liquids consumed the tough ascent began! Toby instantly started falling behind until I told him that rattle snakes prey on little boys who fall behind! That did the trick and he managed to fasten his pace. The path up was pretty tough however we’d taken the clockwise route round the loop so at least there was more shade than going down. After a final few drinks breaks we made it back up and had the pleasure of washing our dirty, sandy feet under a nice cold tap! It felt lovely!
No rest for the wicked though and we were soon aback in the car heading towards a viewpoint at Fairyland Canyon. We took in the sights, took some more pictures, got buzzed by some bugs and then realised we were proper hungry so set off to Subway via a brief photo stop at the park sign.
After devouring a sandwich we loaded up the TV screens and hit the road to Torrey. The drive was pretty much two hours along Highway 12, an American Scenic Byway. It was a pretty quiet road (barely any cars on the road for 40 odd miles) but pretty darn impressive nonetheless. Although there were lots of great views the one that beat them all was the view of Million Dollar Road. The Utah red-necks that pulled up at the same time of us thought it was just “more dirt” but I think it was slightly more impressive than that!
We then drove along Million Dollar Road and wound our way up a very steep climb on the other side. At one point the road was winding its way across the top of a ridge that was literally just wide enough to fit a two lane highway on top with sheer drops drop on either side. Rest assured that Tracy was clinging to door handle for dear life and mumbling “oh my god” over and over again! To be fair, even I thought it was probably best to look at the road and not the view at this point! The road is now known as the Road of Doom, to accompany the Gap of Doom from our travels in Sydney.
Having survived the road of doom we continued to climb higher and eventually reached the summit at about 9,600ft before beginning the winding descent down to Torrey. Our hotel was just outside Torrey near Capitol Reef National Park. After checking in and unpacking there was only one thing to do and that was go to the pool. Two days in the sunshine without a pool made going into this one even nicer. It was in the high 90’s and the cool of the pool was most welcoming.
After the pool (and the hot tub for the boys) it was time for a shower and a visit to the Rim Restaurant across the road from the hotel. Food, beer, wine and puddings were demolished and then it was back to the hotel to watch the sunset and then hit the bed.
Tomorrow is a trip to Goblin Valley and then on to Moab and our final destination in the parks of Utah.
All Bryce pictures are here…