| s: So, we’ve saved the long tunnel for the trip out this morning, having heard that the scenery changes drastically on just the other side. Indeed, the rock starts looking a little more windswept, the ‘slickrock’ you hear about, starting here. We stop briefly after the tunnel to marvel at Checkerboard Mesa. It’s not a real abrupt change, but soon there’s more red and yellow in the sandstone, and the occasional skinny spire appears. The change from the large monoliths of Zion to the tall slim needle-towers of Bryce takes place over the full 86-mile drive. But you don’t see anything like Bryce Canyon until you’re fully in Bryce Canyon (except for Red Canyon, right before Bryce). | |
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This place - it’s just unreal. About ten or twenty miles of the side
of a long divide, with countless sub-canyons, crowded with crazy-ass pinnacles, towers,
minarets, arches, and monuments, in shades of red to gold, in some places topped with
white snow, with pink cliffs visible across a plain in the long distance twenty or more
miles away, Bryce Canyon will just plain knock your socks off. The name of one of the sub-canyons, "Fairyland," describes it as well as anything can. There are specific explanations for this magic - wind, water, seismic activity, over time - but none of the scientific analyses can really get at the feeling in your gut that this is indeed a magical place, and none of it really explains WHY it should all have happened as it did and left this for us to experience. You know that your breath passing a hole over an enclosed wooden chamber of a specific size will produce a specific tone, but this does not change the fact that it requires enormous talent to produce music on a flute that will bring tears to another’s eyes. |
s: We’d sort of like to spend two nights here, too, but after looking around a bit, and seeing on the maps how much more there is we want to see beyond Bryce, we get a campsite for one night, and will decide later if we want to stay. Then, we make use of the showers available just north of the park entrance, get a decent burger (declining for now to try the Ostrichburger - it’s important on these trips to leave some things undone for the next time), and check out the very expensive but well-equipped shops provided by someone named "Ruby."
t: The Ruby shops are indeed pretty impressive. Good place for souvenirs - we picked up some Bryce Canyon t-shirts that weren’t too expensive and were good quality. They also have a well-stocked general store full of camping equipment, groceries and other supplies, as well as their own liquor store. However... they have several stuffed mountain lions and other animals high upon the walls. I think if I saw a mountain lion or even a bobcat in the wild I’d likely drop dead of delight; of course I can’t help thinking we’re in puma country and have been watching everywhere for them, and finally I find them because some sicko had to prove something by putting bullets through several.
The end of the Navajo loop is closed, so we continue on the Queen’s Garden loop. Again, someone has named an incredible feature of nature after some hokey human thing that is nowhere near as wondrous - i.e., a spire which is sort of shaped like Queen Victoria. We can only speculate that those who named this spire might’ve had a somewhat less-than-reverent opinion of the Queen, and perhaps they’d also named one of the numerous arches ‘The Queen’s Arsehole,’ but this of course is lost to the pages of history. Just as we’re climbing back to the rim, it starts to snow, and not just flurries, but pretty convincing amounts of large snowflakes, sticking to my hat and sweater as well as the cars in the parking lot etc. At this point, given that night is only a few hours away, we can imagine having a very cold night in the tent, and waking to a winter wonderland. Many of the European tourists are wearing shorts, scurrying to their vehicles. We, in long pants, scurry similarly. We’ll have dinner at the Lodge (another Fred Harvey establishment), and then have a small fire (and a few beers, maybe) at the campsite, before turning in.
t: As the snow begins to fly coming out of the Navajo trail, an unfinished postcard blew across the trail. It’s destined for Switzerland, and I can’t understand the German writing, but I add a note about how we find it and later we send it on. Hopefully, someone didn’t later change their mind about what they wrote!
t: I’m impressed by the number of Germans and French that surround us in the parks - often it seems that English speakers are outnumbered by them. I’m not so impressed by their driving skills.
