Bryce Canyon National Park - Glendale, Utah

Glendale, Utah – Bryce Canyon National Park – Sept 22-23, 2011

The Park is named Bryce Canyon National Park, but there is really not a Canyon there as you would see in Grand Canyon NP, or the Black Canyon of Gunnison that we went to back in June.

Although Bryce Canyon NP is only a few miles away from Zion NP, as you drive closer to Bryce the scenery changes again, starting to show the spires, rather than just the striations of color that was in Zion.

On to the Park entrance.

Holy Mackerel, check out these spires in Bryce, they call them Hoodoos, and there are spectacular areas of Hoodoos everywhere in Bryce. We were so impressed with Bryce that we took over 400 pictures.

We were bundled up because it was COLD-COLD up there early in the morning.

Moving on to an area called Inspiration Point.

Don’t get too Inspired and get too close to the edge of the cliff.

The Park Service has made many hiking trails down among the Hoodoos so you can get up close and personal with them.

Moving on around the rim road...

Here is a feature named ‘Natural Bridge’, but they point out that it really is an Arch, not a natural bridge.

Check out a closer view of the Arch. There is a very hardy little fir tree seemingly growing right out of the rock just below the center of the arch.

In Zion NP most of the roads and trails were at lower levels, because most of the time was spent looking up at the large formations. In Bryce, almost all the viewing areas are necessarily higher than the Hoodoo features you are looking at, so you look down on the hoodoos, unless you hike down into the trails. The rim at Bryce NP is between 8000 and 9000 ft in altitude, and it was really cold when we got there in the morning. The shrubs below have already started changing to their autumn color, and it is only three weeks into September.

Here is Sylvia at Ponderosa Point. I wonder why they chose to make the top of the sign reach elevation 8908 ft, instead of 8907 ft.  At 8907 ft, she could have comfortably looked over the top of the sign without cutting off her chin.

Here is the view down from Ponderosa Point.

Here is a formation they are calling ‘The Poodle’ If you look closely, there is a ‘standard size poodle sitting up and looking toward the left…

This time they made the sign a little lower, or maybe she is standing on a rock…..

We also saw Pronghorn Antelope on the way out of the park.

 

Zion National Park - Virgin, Utah

Virgin, Utah – Zion National Park – Sept 20-21, 2011

You can tell you are getting closer to the Zion NP area because the terrain changes pretty significantly.

We stayed at a really nice campground in Virgin, Utah called Zion River Resort RV Park.

Just up the road from the RV Park was a man made attraction named Fort Zion.

You can see from the sign that Fort Zion has many features, such as a Trading Post (selling Indian made Jewelry, pottery, Hopi style Katsinas dolls ), a restaurant (selling Cowboy Burgers, Navajo Tacos, Rattlesnake BBQ, homemade ice cream, fudge, cookies, jerky, etc.), a Petting Farm (featuring Alpacas, Llamas, Donkeys).

There are many buildings that are part of Fort Zion, such as the Virgin Trading Post

There are other more quirky cartoon style buildings such as the ‘Virgin Jail’, the ‘Hotel Virgin’, the ‘Wild Ass Saloon’, ‘Miss Molly’s House of Negotiable Affection’, the ‘OK Corral’,  and naturally a “Bank’, an ‘Undertaker’ building, and the ‘Lost Virgin Mine’.

Some visitors were not allowed into the Virgin Jail.

We visited Zion National Park over 2 days in order to catch the evening sun the first day and the morning sun the next morning so the photographs would be more interesting. The scenery is truly beautiful.

We saw some wildlife in the park.

                                          Mountain Goats

                       Baby Mule Deer

These Ostrich were on a farm outside the Park

Leaving the Park

 On to Bryce National Park next.