Bryce Canyon Day 1

Today we planned to wake up early and leave the Grand Canyon for Bryce Canyon. However, we did not plan on waking up at 5:30, but the ravens decided they wanted us to leave, because they wouldn’t be quiet. I now have a new least favorite bird in the world. So, we got up, packed up and headed north toward Bryce Canyon. By the way, Kate woke me up at midnight because some coyotes were baying to each other. It was pretty cool. They sounded like they were laughing.

The entire area between the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon is full of incredible geological formations. I think one could just stay in that area for a month and not get around to seeing everything.

We pulled into Bryce Canyon and went to claim a campsite since we didn’t have reservations. We passed through a thunderstorm on the way and were racing it to get our tent and campsite set up. We’re getting pretty good at it, and got the tent up in record time. We went for a little drive through the park to various overlooks and got our first glimpse of Bryce Canyon. It is an amazing array of rock formations called hoodoos. They are essentially columns of rock that have been eroded into designs that seem to defy the laws of physics. Look up Bryce Canyon hoodoos when you get a chance and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

We ran into the thunderstorm at the top of the mountain. Bryce Canyon is at about 8,000 feet of elevation so the weather is a bit unpredictable. Fortunately, we were in the car so we didn’t get wet. We came back down to the visitor’s center and hung out for a bit while it finished raining. Then we cooked a delicious supper of chicken, new potatoes, green beans and squash relish all from Stephanie’s garden (except for the chicken). We’re out of squash relish now, and that is a very sad thing.

After dinner we went to a lecture by one of the park rangers here at Bryce. They call themselves “Dark Rangers” because they specialize in astronomy and dark conservation. The program was very interesting. It talked a lot about how artificial light is very quickly eliminating all the dark skies in the US. This week is the 10^th annual Bryce Canyon Astronomy Festival so that’s why there is a lot of emphasis on dark conservation. There are very few dark skies left in the US that will allow good stargazing to happen. He showed us a picture and the entire east coast is basically one big light. You can see stars, but not any of the really cool things that you can see in really dark areas. Bryce Canyon is the 3^rd darkest national park in the US, so it’s ideal for stargazing. During the festival, astronomers from Salt Lake City come down and set up HUGE telescopes for everyone to use. The night sky here is quite incredible and you can see a lot with just the naked eye.

As Kate and I were watching the program, I got a little cool, so I went down to the Jeep to get my jacket out. When I got to the Jeep, I realized that I had locked my keys in. Needless to say I was a little upset with myself. We are in the middle of nowhere so I figured that we were probably trapped for a while, not to mention that it was 10:00pm. Fortunately, I had Kate’s cell phone in my pocket and we have AAA. I called them and 30 mins later a towing company came out and unlocked it, free of charge. I was amazed and will always keep a AAA membership from now on.

We jumped on the park shuttle over to where they have the telescopes set up for everyone to use. As soon as we got there, lightning started so they had to break down everything before we could get a glimpse. While we were waiting on the shuttle to take us back to our car, it started raining, which apparently is the norm here. For a place that is so dry, it sure does rain a lot. They’ve already had over 100 inches of precipitation this year. We got off the shuttle and were running back to our car when we had to dodge a deer crossing the road. It scared the poo out of us because we thought is may be a mountain lion for a second. We rounded the corner to our parking lot and had to dodge it again and by that time I was ready to take my chances with it.

Thankfully it only rained a bit and we got into the tent and ready for bed around 12:30. We were both really tired since we had been up since 5:30am. It was cool at night, but not cold, and I slept really well. Kate didn’t sleep as well, but neither of us had a problem going to sleep.

That’s it for day one of Bryce Canyon. Tomorrow we’re going on a hike into the canyon so we’ll talk to you then!