Southern Utah: Bryce & Zion

Day 23 – Stops: Bryce Canyon National Park, UT; Zion National Park, UT

Hikes: Bryce Canyon – Queen’s Garden to Navajo Loop (3.0 miles).
Zion National Park – Observation Point (8.0 miles; elevation: 2100 feet)

 

Another early day. We awoke at 5:45am to head out for Bryce Canyon’s Sunrise point. My quads were super sore and I limped to the overlook as the sun’s rays hit each of the Hoodoos in Bryce’s amphitheater.

 

 

We then returned to the campsite for breakfast. We had hotdogs eggs and bacon and so a new breakfast option was born. Hotdogs on a bun topped with eggs, bacon, and ketchup: we termed them “Bryce Breakfast Boners”. We came up with a marketing plan as well, deciding to sell our idea to Jimmy Deans.

We started out from Sunrise Point to Queen’s Garden and took in the tall spires called Hoodoos that populate Bryce Canyon. It really doesn’t make much sense how they stand on such a precipice. This Canyon isn’t really a canyon as it was at one time a lake that eroded the terrain. We continued the long trek back up Navajo loop and back to Sunrise Point. Again my legs were screaming at me for completing this after the previous day’s race.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

From there we headed to Zion, only an hour and a half west of Bryce. And the weather was around 35 degrees warmer. We camped at the Watchman campground and when Vinay and Vijay arrived we decided to eat lunch and shop for dinner in Springdale, UT before heading out to the Observation Point trailhead in Zion.

Zion

 

Observation Point is a fairly long climb with many switchbacks through these mountains with fantastic jagged rock faces. Words cannot describe it, but I’ll post some pictures that will help. As we reached the top of Observation point Zion jumped up on my list of favorite National Parks. The view into the Canyon is unreal and you can understand why they called this place Zion ( a place of refuge). We headed back down the trail in quarter of the time, arriving back before dark.

 

 

 

 

Vinay suggested we make these Hobos packs for dinner. Basically you combined meat with vegetables and some seasoning in tin foil like a burrito, place it directly on embers and slow cook it. Unfortunately for Jeremy his was not cooked all the way through when Vinay suggested he tasted the beef. It was little gooey. Jeremy stated “This is not done. If I get diarrhea tomorrow we’ll know why”.

Must Do: Bryce Canyon at Sunrise, Observation Point in Zion National Park, UT