Higher Miles: Day 5: Bryce Canyon National Park

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Day 5: Bryce Canyon National Park

Day 1: Travel
Day 2: Hoover Dam Half Marathon
Day 3: Best Friends: tour/orientation/dogs

Day 5 was scheduled for hiking. We weren't sure if we wanted to do Bryce or Zion first but we were planning on doing one day at each. Last year sometime, I started researching a possible vacation for my husband and I. I was looking at Costa Rica and ordered a bunch of adventure vacation company catalogs. I wasn't planning on using some organized group but there were great reference material as research for possible iterniaries. In many of those catalogs, there were trips to Bryce and Zion. I don't think I'd even heard of either park before that time. I was just used to hearing about the Grand Canyon as the destination for a vacation in this area. After seeing the pictures, I knew I wanted to visit both Bryce and Zion. The plan for Costa Rica was nixed (everything I wanted to do would've been super expensive), and somehow the trip morphed into a trip to Best Friends for just my sister and I and hiking in the national parks. Neither of our husband's were very interested in either.

Anyway, on Tuesday morning, after a quick morning run, we got ready and drove the hour and a half to Bryce. The entire trip we realized how remote this area was - gorgeous, with nothing around. No cell phone reception and on the way to Bryce we lost all radio stations, including the satellite radio we found on the rental car. All we could get was the ads for Sirius with the channel guide...which got quite annoying after listening to it for so long.

When we finally made it into Bryce, we parked and started at Sunrise Point. I had previously concluded the best hike option would be to combine Queen's Garde, Peekaboo Loop and Navajo Loop. This was supposed to be a 6.4 mile hike combination but we must of cut Peekaboo short because I know we didn't cover 6.4 miles. However we did it ended up being perfect though because we got a great view of the land, starting at the top, hiking down into the canyon amongst the hoodoos and then out the other side. From there, we walked back to Sunrise Point from Sunset Point.

We took a break to eat our packed lunches and then headed up to Rainbow Point which is the end of the scenic drivce through the park. From there, we completed the Bristlecone Loop hike and jumped back into the car and hit all the viewpoints going back out of the park.

From that point, we then hit a few souvenior stores before heading to the last hike of the day which was a very short one named Mossy Cave. I have a habit of being clumsy and as we were walking through a dry creek bed, I had my first fall of the trip. My leg is still all bruised up from tumble number 1, which I actually think it pretty funny.