Bryce Canyon National Park

We didn’t have to travel far to enjoy the glowing red and orange hues of sandstone hills and sparkling snow capped peaks as the sun rose in the sky. But what we couldn’t enjoy from our kitchen/living room/dinette window was a hike.

We had a quick breakfast, grabbed a few snacks, filled our water bottles, and set off on I-15 for our two hour drive to Bryce Canyon National Park. For the majority of the drive, I stared out the window at the passing scenery. I’m not too fond of reading in the car, but just two days earlier, the last book in my favorite series (more about that in a later blog) had arrived and I couldn’t wait to read it. By reading 30 pages, I guess you could say I broke my record for the amount of pages read while in a car before I start to feel queasy.

Anyway, after about two hours we arrived at the Bryce Canyon visitor center where we were greeted by a nice surprise – snow! While my dad planned our hiking routes for the day, I checked out the exhibits inside the visitor center, where I first learnt of hoodoos – tall yet skinny pillars of rock (often described as having a totem pole-like body), shaped by the forces of nature.

Not long after, I found myself walking – more of trudging – among the giant, spire-like shafts of sandstone along the Navajo Loop Trail. Due to the melted snow along the sandstone trail, the once sandy path was now a slippery, thick, reddish-orange glue-like gloop, grabbing at your boots as you trudged through it. There was a bit of a descent at the beginning of the trail, so I had to be careful to 1) not stop for too long as to let my boot sink into the mud, and to 2) not slip and fall or else I’d look like I landed in a vat filled with pumpkin frosting. Eventually, the muddy trail did give way to a dry, sandy one, which was a relief. I really didn’t want to spend an hour scrubbing off any more mud than I had to with a toothbrush on my already mud-caked hiking boots.

Finally, after a spectacular hike through hundreds of hoodoos, we made it back to Sunset Point where we had started the Navajo Trail Loop. But we weren’t done for the day – the sun was still up!

After wiping the soles of our muddy boots in patches of hardened snow and ice, we hopped in our car and drove up to Rainbow Point. At an elevation of 9,115 feet, Rainbow Point is one of the highest points in the park. From there, we began walking the Bristlecone Loop Trail. As the sun set in the sky, we reached a lookout point which displayed green rolling hills down below and large walls of rock painted a deep orange from the setting sun. We would have stayed longer, sipping hot tea as we watched the sunset, if the sole of one of my sister’s hiking boots hadn’t fallen off. And if she didn’t have ice and snow jammed up her boot, soaking her socks. So we hurried back to the car and drove home in the dark.

Zion National Park

Like Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park was also very picturesque. We visited Zion Valley, where we hiked to the Emerald Pools; and Kolob Canyons, where we hiked along the Taylor Creek Trail past the wooden cabins and to Double Arch Alcove. Believe it or not, we had to cross Taylor Creek over 70 times during the span of our hike! Just as at Bryce Canyon National Park, snow had also fallen at Kolob Canyons. With a layer of snow on the ground and all the trees around coated in snow, I got the feeling I was walking in a winter wonderland.