MOUTH FULL OF DIRT : Super D's Blog: Bryce Canyon (Part 1

I was up before the sun as I was too cold to really sleep. Good thing we have some heavy-duty sleeping bags. It was a really cold night, down into the 20s in our little tipi. The good thing about camping at Ruby's Inn RV Park & Campground is that it is just a couple of miles from the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park. They even have a booth at the campground where you can purchase park passes and catch the shuttle into the park. We bought our passes the previous night and were ready to go at daylight.

Bryce Canyon is actually not a canyon at all. Canyons require two sides and Bryce only has one. It is actually the side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is the top of a huge geological formation known as the "Grand Staircase." I feel like I know a little bit about the geology of most of the country, but I was completely unaware of this "Grand Staircase." From the Paunsaugunt Plateau, there is a series of sudden elevation changes much like giant steps in a staircase, ending at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Each step down reveals a different layer of rock and a different time period in Earth's history. The deeper layer in the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be the oldest, with the uppermost layer in Bryce being the youngest. Each layer also bears a different color. Bryce is known as the Pink Cliffs. The next level down is the Grey Cliffs, followed by the White Cliffs, Vermillion Cliffs, Chocolate Cliffs and finally the Grand Canyon itself. Zion National Park is located within these steps as well. Collectively, the Grand Staircase makes up the most complete history of the Earth viewable in one location.

The rock formations within Bryce Canyon were not formed by water erosion from a central stream like in a typical canyon, but rather from frost weathering caused by temperature swings. Bryce experiences on average 200 days per year where the temperature drops below freezing. Around 180 days a year the temp warms in the afternoon and drops below freezing at night. The near-constant freeze-thaw erodes the side of the plateau, forming the famous Bryce hoodoos. The rock formations are in collections known as amphitheaters. The rock erodes into vertical walls, or fins, first. Further erosion opens up holes in the walls called windows. The windows get bigger until the area around them falls, leaving spires of rock sticking up between where the windows were. The spires are called hoodoos. Fun too say, cool to see.

Parking is limited within the park. Most of the overlooks have small parking areas compared to the number of visitors Bryce Canyon sees every year, which is around 2.6 million people. The park provides a shuttle service to relieve some of the parking headaches. The shuttle only services the northern half of the park, which is where the amphitheaters are in greatest concentration. Viewpoints are scattered over 15 miles from Bryce Point, where shuttle service ends, to the southern end of the park at Rainbow Point. The park road is located entirely on top of the plateau and is not a through road. There is one way in and one way out. The park is sort of laid out like a peninsula. If you want to go off the plateau into the canyon bottom itself, you must do it on foot, or by horse. I would love to have taken one of the guided horse tours, but it was a bit out of our price range for this trip.

Since we got an early start, we chose to do our driving portion first, heading straight to the back of the park and starting with some hiking around Yovimpa Point to Rainbow Point. It was a short hike at only around a mile for the Bristlecone Loop and surrounding trails, but it was beautiful. The early morning sun made it difficult to see across the horizon, but we could still see plenty. From Yovimpa Point, you can see nearly the entire Grand Staircase formation to the south. You are standing on the Pink Cliffs and can see the pink rocks right in front of you, while below are the Grey Cliffs. White Cliffs can easily be seen in the distance and you can strain to see the Vermillion Cliffs beyond that. The Chocolate Cliffs are small and blocked from view by the Vermillion Cliffs. At the edge of the horizon is the Kaibab Plateau, which is the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Binoculars would be helpful, but you can see most of this on a clear day without zoom help. Yovimpa Point is the best place to see the most of the Grand Staircase as part of it is hidden from all other known viewpoints by the curvature of the Earth. It's big.

View from Yovimpa Point

Looking south from Yovimpa Point over the Grand Staircase

Grey Cliffs below, White Cliffs in the distance. You can make out some slight red color from the Vermillion Cliffs just beyond the white if you zoom. The morning sun was a bit too hazy to see it clearly.

Bristlecone Loop

We learned about Bristlecone Pines as we hiked. They are some interesting trees that can survive harsh conditions. They have so many crazy branches because part of the tree can die and the tree will begin growing out of one of the branches. They live for long periods and this shift to growing out of branches can happen numerous times over the course of the tree's life, making for some very strange-looking trees.

Bristlecone Pine

Another good view along the Bristlecone Loop, this one between Yovimpa Point and Rainbow Point.

We ended our short hike at Rainbow Point, looking more northward and to the east. Here, there were lots of colors and formations below us and far off in the distance. It was our first real taste of a full Bryce amphitheater.

Rainbow Point

Crow on the white rock with a great view behind

Looking north at Rainbow Point toward the main Bryce amphitheaters

The crow again

After Rainbow, we started driving north, this time stopping at every overlook along the way for a different amphitheater view. My favorite view on this stretch was Agua Canyon with its strikingly red cliffs, but Bryce Point was pretty spectacular as well.