6.5.2012 – 6.5.2012  19 °C

We had a nice and full day today culminating in us arriving in Bryce Canyon (which is unbelievable). To begin, we decided to head down a part of the Hole in the Wall trail to see the Devil’s Garden. The track is pretty rough and to go all the way to the man-made hole apparently takes you all day! We spent only a bit of time driving down to the garden. It was quite similar to the Goblin State Park we had seen the day previous so we actually didn’t stick around too long. Instead we decided to head towards the Petrified Forest and check out some old fossilised trees.

Once we arrived at the forest area, the lady manning the gate, told us that to see the forest we would need to hike two miles up to the plateau to see the forest… Mmm… none of us were keen to hike straight up and besides which we really didn’t have the time so we instead had a look at some samples they had brought down from the top and stopped to have our morning tea by the sides of a reservoir. The tree samples are pretty good! Some of the samples admittedly looked like rocks but some of the samples were easily identified by the bark and tree rings.

From the state park we continued south west towards Bryce with our next stop being the Kodachrome Basin! Kodachrome was so named by the National Geographic Society because of the unbelievably red rocks that live in this part of Utah. The colours were really quite amazing.. Deep orangey red! Against the back drop of blue sky… Aah! We decided to hike around the rim of a mesa to get a really good view of the basin which was a bit more full on than the easy to moderate rating it had been given! M gave D’s two walking poles quite a work out (although she is still adamant that there is no point her buying some! ) The view from the top was pretty spectacular but as our tummy’s were rumbling we thought we’d walk back to the car and have a picnic lunch.

From lunch we continued the 20 miles or so down to Bryce…. Well nothing prepared us for seeing Bryce canyon.. We were actually debating in the car whether we were canyon-ed out and M even commented on whether we needed to see both Bryce and Zion!! As soon as we entered the park we knew why this park is so famous… Salmon coloured mountains with pine trees!!! BEAUTIFUL… Bryce is actually famous for ‘hoodoos’ which are pillared rock formations.. similar to the type you get when you dribble wet sand thru your hand at the beach.. If you can imagine that as a salmon and whitish coloured rock you can visualise Bryce… It is just gorgeous!

On arrival at the park we attempted to check-in to the lodge.. Attempted is the right term as I had booked us at another hotel (with a very similar name) which is not the main park lodge! After our initial disappointment at not staying at this nice hotel we booked ourselves in for a horseback ride for the next day and then took off for the southern part of the park (the part we won’t see on our ride tomorrow). The drive along the canyon rim is actually pretty ordinary as the action is in the canyon (which is why we are going riding tomorrow). The few lookouts that you can stop at give you a glimpse of the beauty of the canyon.. I’m glad we’re going into the canyon tomorrow as I’m sure the lookouts aren’t doing it justice. J

On exiting the park we had our eyes really open looking for deer and prairie dogs (as they both live in the meadows at the entry of the park). We managed to see both! We saw some deer off in the distance (prob about 100m away) and we saw heaps of prairie dogs sitting on their burrows!!! These ones must be used to humans because they didn’t run away when they saw us!! I managed to get some shots of the little critters this time round!

Song of the Day– Hoodoo Gurus, What’s my scene