Bryce Canyon National Park is one of those uber-popular parks that i've been a bit snobby about. I think some of the most famous parks in the country are not necessarily the best parks, but ride on an reinforcing wave of popularity because the visitors who choose to go to those areas are duly impressed, and since they likely haven't been many other places, they pass the word on to others. Bryce is Utah's park of that type. The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Tetons are others. I have met certain people who have actually been to many parks and declare with great certainty that Bryce is still their favorite. I think it appeals to a certain personality more than to others.
I've been to Bryce before, and on that first occasion driving through the park only confirmed my suspicions that it was overrated. The views from the long slow drive are all similar and the top of the park is just open pine meadows and forest. I'd never actually done any of the trails in the park, so this time i decided to give it a closer look.
The best thing you can do at Bryce is to get up early and see it at sunrise. It will be cold and likely below freezing anytime other than deep summer. In fact, with subfreezing temperatures at night for 200 days a year, frost wedging is actually the major erosional force in the park. If the rocks were present Bryce might be able to exist in Alaska, and indeed, i have seen similar formations in certain areas of the state.
I HATE getting up before dawn. I'm usually very bitter and depressed about life if i am awake before the sun is in the sky. I'm a sunset kinda guy. I'm not a fisherman or farmer. I love sunset. Sunset is the best thing that ever happened to the desert (ask any animal that lives there). Sunrise though, at Bryce, is impressive enough that i'd do it again.
Due to it's orientation the morning light illuminates far more of the scenic areas than sunset. Unlike the vast areas of sandstone in Utah, the soft iron and manganese limestones of Bryce reveal their colors better in the early morning light than they do in the evening sun. Somehow they pull off the illusion of actually glowing for a short time.
There were a large number of people out there in the predawn darkness. Luckily i still had room to get a spot that was close to what i was looking for at one of the viewpoints i had scouted out the previous evening. I even had time to take a 10 minute walk to another viewpoint for comparison. I also had time to answer some questions to an old New Jersey couple as to why i wasn't pointing the camera directly at the sun to get a sunrise picture. They were delighted to understand the answer.
Afterwards i did a short two mile loop hike down in the canyon. Although you think you've seen everything from the top i have to say i'd definitely recommend going down into the canyon. The formations were larger than i thought. The walking is very relaxing and continuously surprising. It's almost like walking through a theme park, but with a billion interesting photos available to take.
By the time i left the temperature had risen from about 25 to what seemed like 70 degrees. I have to admit, you can get a lot done if you rise before the sun. I felt like i had done a lot and it was only 8:30 am. I had plenty of time to make it to my next destination.
Oh yeah, i had to leave. This is embarrassing, but i had no place to stay. A few days prior, in Zion, i had called a hotel at Bryce to make reservations. I tried to use the directions on the phone in the hotel room but apparently i'm an idiot (or the instructions are vague and badly written) and i ended up calling the front desk instead. I didn't know that was what happened, and i made a reservation for two nights, at the hotel i was already staying at instead of the one i wanted in Bryce. So when i got to Bryce well after dark and went to the hotel they had no room for me, and were booked for several days. I was dismayed. I found a more expensive room at one of the other two hotels but they only had a room for a single night. I was pretty angry about the first hotel losing my reservation until a couple of messages popped up on my now in-range cell phone. The messages were from my Zion hotel and the owners were pretty upset that i'd made reservations but didn't show up. Very embarrassing, especially since i liked the owners of the hotel in Zion, and plan on staying there again in the future.
