Today, the Colorado Plateau displays a nearly complete sequence of sedimentary rocks that stretch north from the Grand Canyon at the bottom, where the very basement rocks of the continent lie, to Bryce Canyon at the top. This marvel of the geologic record has very few gaps and is known as the Grand Staircase.
We have spent several weeks at various spectacular “steps” on the Grand Staircase. For the next two weeks we would linger on the top step at the so-called pink cliffs of Bryce Canyon.
Al selected a perfect campground that was very convenient for visiting Bryce Canyon National Park. Ruby’s RV Park was situated in Bryce Canyon City at the very doorstep of the national park. Ruby’s was also a stop along the route of a nifty free shuttle bus into the park. It sure was nice not to have to consider parking issues within the park.
Ruby’s comprised a giant tourist business operation that had it all covered—hotel, cabins, restaurants, a general store, a cowboy dinner show, western adventure activities, and an RV park. This business venture was started by Reuben Syrett and his wife Minnie 100 years ago. Ruby’s operation began as tent camps called Tourist Rest for visitors to Bryce Canyon. Today, Ruby’s ancestors still own the enterprise; they would appear to be the recipients of a very wealthy inheritance…
Bryce Canyon is actually not a canyon but rather a series of amphitheaters composed of whimsical rock formations called hoodoos.
Scottish Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, who homesteaded in the area with his wife and family in the latter decades of the 1800s, gave his namesake to the national park that now bears his name. Ebenezer Bryce once famously said, “It’s a helluva place to lose a horse.” His words have been immortalized in a cowboy song sung nightly by the Bryce Canyon Wranglers at cowboy dinner shows seen at Ebenezer’s Barn and Grill.
We can personally attest that the Wranglers at Ebenezer’s provided a first-rate country music performance. The cowboy cuisine was pretty darn good too! We thoroughly enjoyed our rainy evening at the dinner show at a table with two other couples—one from France and the other from the Netherlands. Neither European couple seemed quite sure what to expect, and the conversation never lagged…
For our first trip into Bryce Canyon National Park, we decided to walk the rim trail for the most iconic and popular views of the star of the show—Bryce Amphitheater. The fiery red colors and fairytale hoodoo formations simply awed the sense of sight!
Al and I frequently observed to one another that the park’s decision not to block the rim of the amphitheater with lots of ugly fences meant that “Bryce Canyon has given its visitors a whole lot of ways to screw up.” We made this same observation at Grand Canyon. In both parks we saw many a fool taking that must-have camera pic way too close to the edge for safety. In any case, our personal “6-foot rule” still allowed for spectacular views down into the amphitheater, like this one looking down on the next day’s hike along the “Queen’s Garden Trail.”
We felt the rim trail climb to Inspiration Point well worth it for one of the park’s most inspiring viewpoints.
Lunch in the historic lodge along the rim was relatively inexpensive and quite nice…
Horse jokes aside, the ruggedness of the hoodoo landscape at Bryce Point was also treacherous for unprepared humans, as we discovered shortly after our arrival when a man hiking a Bryce trail, dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt and carrying little water and no food, got lost for 4 days before he was rescued.
The Queen’s Garden Trail led 320 feet down to a hoodoo formation resembling Queen Victoria.
As we descended lower on the trail, the hoodoos were just out of reach.
Hiker doorways that had been cut into the hoodoo formations reminded me of a hobbit house.
It was uncanny how closely the Queen Victoria hoodoo resembled the queen’s statue in London…
The climb back up did sap a little oxygen from the lungs, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
The 15-mile drive out to the furthest part of the park at Yovimpa Point was definitely worth it for ever more diverse views of Bryce Canyon’s fairytale formations.
At over 9000 feet of elevation, the past winter’s snow had not melted yet.
The views at Rainbow Point,
Ponderosa Point,
Natural Bridge,
and Fairyland Canyon
were further highlights of Bryce Canyon’s poetry in stone.
This 6-mile roundtrip trail followed a stream to a 126 ft high waterfall that poured dramatically over the canyon wall.
Red pigment pictographs of trapezoidal bodies adorned with elaborate headdresses painted on the rock faces of the canyon,
and very old granaries dating back to the Fremont People, who built into high niches in the canyon wall,
added additional interest to this very pleasant trail.
KODACHROME BASIN STATE PARK
On the way to Kodachrome Basin State Park we took a slight detour to what has been called one of Nature’s “unequalled masterpieces”—Grosvenor Arch. Indeed, this massive solitary 152 ft tall double arch was one of the most perfect we have seen to date.
Dramatic arch shots with jet contrails were an obvious temptation…
The last few miles on the approach to Kodachrome Basin State Park left little doubt why that name was selected. In fact, when the park was created, the state had to get permission from the Kodak film company to use Kodachrome as its name.
The most distinctive feature of Kodachrome Basin State Park was a geologic formation called a sand pipe, a structure similar to an upright cylindrical chimney.
Panorama Trail
had numerous sand pipe formations. Some of them, like Ballerina Spire, were quite tall.
Secret Passage detour had more unusual sand pipes,
dramatic pink slickrock,
and irresistible backdrops.
We knew ahead of time that the trail to Shakespeare Arch would be an effort in futility, as a ranger told us when we entered the park that the only natural arch in the park, several million-year-old Shakespeare Arch, had fallen in a wind storm just a few days ago!
Yep, the arch was now rubble at the base…
At an elevation of 9115 ft at Rainbow Point, the most distant point in Bryce Canyon, Al remarked, “It’s all downhill from here.” I chuckled and agreed. For the next 5 months or so, we would be heading downhill to our October reunion date in Maryland on the Atlantic Ocean. What a great downhill ride it would be!
Carol Galus
Photo-Blogger
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