Thanks to our early to bed, we were also early to rise, both awake at 5 AM. We dressed and took a short walk to the rim of the canyon for our first view. The first thing you need to understand about Bryce Canyon is that it is not a canyon, it is more properly called an amphitheater. Which means you are on top of a giant precipice looking out over an immense amount of eroded sandstone. We walked to Sunrise Point joining many others to await the suns first appearance over the horizon illuminating this incredible sandstone phenomenon. The sun appeared at 6:20 AM. It was worth the early arising. We strolled along the rim and took several pictures before returning to the lodge for breakfast.
After breakfast we piled into our PT Cruiser which has been christened multiple names, not the least of which is “Pretty Tame”, “Pathetic Torque”, and “Ptarmigan”. We settled on Ptarmigan as the car is snowy white just like the Ptarmigans we saw in Alaska. We spent the morning driving the 36 mile round trip scenic drive, stopping at all of the overlooks. The elevations along this trip ranged from a low of 8,000 ft. at the lodge to 9,115 ft. at Rainbow Point. Not only were the views incredible but we were also able to take pictures of wildflowers, deer, chipmunks, and one very tame raven at Ponderosa Point. The most prevalent bird in the area is the Violet Green Swallow which are flying all over the place. We finished our drive back at the lodge in time for lunch.
After lunch we got adventurous. We put on our hiking shoes and hiked the Navajo Loop Trail. This trail is described as “moderate” in difficulty. It is 1.3 miles in length which is .7 miles down 520 ft. and then, groan, .6th of a mile back up. It was worth the trip. We were able to walk through a very steep and deep, narrow canyon gorge named “Wall Street”. Looking up the walls did not look 10 feet apart, but were 500 ft. high. Awesome! On the hike back up we saw another rock formation by the name of “Thor’s Hammer”. These narrow rock formations are sandstone eroded remains which have been named “hoodoos” and they are many and plentiful. Back at the top we realized that this hike was breathtaking in more ways than one. Not only did the view take our breath away, but so did the hike. The hike took us an hour and a half and we were back in our room by 3PM.
Well, apparently that didn’t satisfy us and 15 minutes later we set out again to hike the Queen’s Garden Trail. This was easier going as it dropped only 320 ft. and was not nearly as steep as the earlier hike, but due to the earlier hike we were just as tired. This trail was actually longer than the previous one at 1.6 miles. On this trail we say a mountain bluebird, many hoodoos but much closer up than on the previous hike, and had to walk through several manmade arches. It was quite breezy on this trip, but temperatures were probably in the mid 70’s. We were back in our room at 5 o’clock. We then showered and spent a pleasant hour on our deck planning our next day’s activities. We ate dinner at the lodge at 6:45. Dinner was excellent especially so for a couple of really tired hikers, bringing to a happy end our first sight seeing day.
