This morning we hauled ourselves out of bed at dawn (I’m not a fan of these early mornings) so that we could get to Sunset Point before the parking lot filled up.
From there, we hiked the Navajo Loop trail down into the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater.
Then we hooked up with the Queen’s Garden Trail.
And ended up at Sunrise Point.
Sometime before we leave, I would like to do the Navajo Loop Trail to the Wall Street Trail. I really want to wander through the maze of hoodoos.
Rainbow Point
After lunch, Greg decided it was time to terrify me again.
We drove the 18 miles to Rainbow Point, the highest point in Bryce Canyon National Park, at over 9000 feet above sea level. I had to keep my eyes closed for the last eight miles.
To our annoyance, the parking lot was packed. Greg ended up parking illegally in a “government vehicles only” slot. (He claims he didn’t see the sign. Ha!)
This was one of the rare times I didn’t mind breaking the rules. After that hair-raising trip up to Rainbow Point, I was damned if we were going to leave before seeing it!
After snapping a few photos as quickly as we could, we headed back down the mountain, stopping at various overlooks along the way.
My favorite by far was Natural Bridge.
We wanted to stop at Bryce Point as well, but there was a ranger blocking the road and a sign that said “lot full.” Argh!
Ugh. Crowds.
We have discovered that if we want to find parking at any of the lots in the national parks, we need to arrive by 9:00 a.m.
That’s no problem for our first stop of the day, because we’re usually arriving between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. But anything we want to do after that becomes a challenge.
It’s really annoying.
On the other hand, the weather has been absolutely beautiful, and if we were doing this in the summer, we would be fighting both heat and crowds.
Foreign tourists
For those of you who might be wondering what it is like to tour the national parks while Trump is gleefully antagonizing non-Americans, let me say that it seems to have had little effect on tourism.
I would guess that between 15 to 20% of the tourists in the parks right now are foreigners. People are speaking French, German, Asian languages, and lots of languages that I can’t identify.
Today we met someone from Belgium, and we camped next to an Israeli family when we were in Zion. (They were absolutely delightful!) After they left, several young Germans took their place. On our other side were some middle easterners.
I have loved hearing all the different languages and chatting with people from all over the world.
Oh, and I haven’t noticed a decrease in service within the parks. I can’t say that the rangers in the visitor centers have been all that helpful, but there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of workers.
Meanderings & Mind Munchies 