Zion NP is one in which you are looking up, not far away is Bryce Canyon NP where you are looking down, unless you decide to take one of the trails down into the HooDoos.  What's a HooDoo?  HooDoos are the figures left by years of erosion, they can look like a garden of statutes.  It's amazing that erosion can be so beautiful, but it is.

Polly and I hiked the trail from Sunrise Point to Sunset Point, or was it from Sunset Point to Sunrise Point?  Anyway, we went down the easy end and came back up the steep (tuff) end.  With an approaching storm and not much in the way of shelter, tho there were some overhangs, we pushed it getting back to the top.  The attached photo, taken in May 2009, is looking out over the canyon from the trail, and the threatening storm.  We didn't think our legs were going to get us to the top of that switchback trail before the storm hit, but they did, can still feel how rubbery our legs were.

The bottom photo shows the switchback trail coming up from the floor of the canyon on this trail.  Had we known we would have walked down this end and out the other end.  Notice the hiker on the right and I think there are two hikers on the left side waaaay down there towards the bottom on the left.  The path was very easy walking, the difficulty was the steepness, we did make several stops along the way.

Bill-

Thanks for posting this on Bryce where we hope to be at the end of June this year.  We will certainly check on which end of the trail to start on - that is the type of info in this forum that is very useful for our classmates and me.  We have looked into booking horse rides but probably will not - although I keep looking at the switchback trail in your picture and wonder why not?  I would also note that it is very common for hail in the west during the monsoon season which is essentially summertime.  We have encountered rain and hail many times on our trips.  One has to watch the weather before trying any trails.

Did you do anything else at Bryce???

Bill

For the life of me I can't remember much else, specifically, about Bryce.  We, of course, did the obligatory drive to the scenic points and overlooks.  There were quite a few overlooks and we really enjoyed the vistas.   We obtained a trail map at the entrance I believe and it offered a number of trails but said if you could only take one the three mile hike between Sunrise Point and Sunset Point was the one to take.

The hike I'm commenting on being so hard might not even be hard for the two of you.  That approaching storm was really putting pressure on us to get to the top so we could have shelter from it.  It actually never hit at our location.  They do have warnings posted regarding lightening storms telling you to get in your vehicle for protection.  There were a couple of overhangs along the trail that would have offered shelter if yout timing in arriving at them was right.

You will turn off Utah 12 to get to the entrance to Bryce.  Near the entrance is a tourist community, I don't remember what it had to offer as we did not stop at it.

When we left Bryce Canyon we headed east on Utah 12 enroute to SLC as we were still headed for OR-WA and were burning more time than we had realized, we were just taking our time, new experience traveling with a travel trailer.  Utah 12 is listed as a scenic highway and it really was a pretty drive.  I believe you will be on it in your travel between Capitol Reef National Park and Bryce Canyon NP.

We were adjusting to traveling with the travel trailer.  Instead of trying to do 500 miles a day we had been advised of the 230 rule for rv'ing.  You drive no more than 230 miles a day and stop by 2:30 p.m.  Of course, that is flexible but the point was not to try and do 500 mile days pulling the travel trailer.  Slow down, enjoy the road, stop early enough to set up, visit with other folks, and just be able to relax instead of the stress of x number of miles having to be covered each day.

Polly's sister and husband were initially to go with us but had to back out.  They wanted to do the drive to OR-WA in two weeks, round trip, from Natchitoches, we told them it would take at least three.  We took five and would have taken longer had Polly not already had a week long commitment  already.  We returned home with one day to spare for her to get ready to be gone another week, otherwise we would probably have stayed out six to eight weeks.

I tried looking at our trip photo album to see if I had something different to post about Bryce but most are similar to those two I've already posted.  We did see quite a few pretty wildflowers in Bryce.  There was one yellow one that was quite prolific.

A tad off topic but speaking of hail, once upon a time on a motorcycle trip up into Colorado, my riding buddy and I had to pull our bikes off at Purgatory when we got caught in a hail storm and then when we got a little farther down and stopped in Durango another hail storm hit while we were in a restaurant.  Not a good time riding in a hail storm.  South of Durango we dodged thunder storms for hours enroute to Santa Fe, NM.  Not good to be out in flat country on a bike amidst thunder storms.

Well Holly's-

We did it!  We went to the bottom of the amphitheater and returned to tell about it.

Bill & Marilyn

You just don't know how much we wanted to slip up there and surprise y'all by being there when you were.  Just didn't work out.  We've really become spoiled to traveling when school is in session, no crowds on the highways, byways, parks, etc.

We knew y'all could make that hike, probably a lot easier than us.  The bad part about our hike was I was concerned about that approaching storm and really pushed for us to get out of the canyon bottom and to the car before it hit.  The only bad part was climbing those switchbacks in the photo I posted and doing it in a rush.

Glad y'all had a safe trip, your picture of Bryce made us want to do it again.  We had a relatively new camera I had purchased while truck driving.  Polly was uncomfortable with it's use so I told her to just start snapping pictures and get used to it.  Well, took the chip in to Wal-Mart to print 'em up, thought we had about 400 pics, would you believe 1400.  Many of Bryce Canyon NP.  You just have to see all 1400 of them.  :)  Just kidding!  Maybe we can get up that way or y'all down this way one day and see "some" of each other's photos.

We missed going to Great Smokey Mountain NP, wanted to go in April/May but put it off due to the reunion, will probably wait until cooler weather now and less crowds.

Thanks for posting Bill, really like your narratives, and as you said this will help others, like us, when we visit some of the places.  I'm not in the habit of preparing as you are so I'll just use your posts for preparation.  :)

Later!