Deb purchased an $80 National Park Pass sometime back and now, with our visit to Bryce, we'll only need a couple more such visits to start saving over what we'd have otherwise paid for individual park admission fees. I like the dispersed camps in the National Forests and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sites because there's fewer people, but we loved this camp. We loved watching the nearby families with little kids. They just let their kids play and play and play - just be kids. Nothing structured! How cool. We saw several very happy little families.
But it was crowded - that was the only drawback. Once we got out and hiked to the canyon, we saw why this place is so popular. The west part of the park where you camp is high ponderosa pine plateau. But, to the east the plateau falls into an incredible wonderland canyon. The canyon forms an inward sweeping "U" with a bright rim that defines one world from the other.
The thousands of crazy spires are called "hoodoos". They're formed by erosion, protected at the top by a little cap of hard rock, but vulnerable along the length of their multi-story bodies. The more they erode - the wackier their shapes. The vertical scale of these features is impossible to process in person, let alone capture in a picture.
Best of all, we got to hike down, and down and down - from the tops to the bottoms.
The descent was otherworldly...
another world!
Happily, we chose the right direction to go on the loop trail because the way up was way more gentle than the way down.
Back at camp, we were in for a very cold night. The park is up about 8,000 feet. We'd been through those cold nights and knew we needed more cover, so we bought a really cool Pendleton Blanket at the big park store. That, with lot's of clothes and Mom Miner's wool blanket kept us toasty.
No comments:
Post a Comment