We are in the thriving metropolis of Winnemucca, NV so it is a good time to update the blog with our time in Bryce Canyon.  I ended the last post with us leaving Sante Fe after 4 fantastic days.  We have decided that we will be back in the fall as part of our October to December road trip but this time coming through Denver so we can see Taos, NM.

We arrived at our hotel in Bryce that was first opened in the late 1800's and is now a huge lodge designed to look like a cowboy town of that era.  Bryce is a smaller national park so the shuttle system is not quite as good as Zion.  It didn't stop at all the trailheads but was still quite efficient.  As usual we started at the visitors' centre to watch the movie about how the canyon was formed, caught a ranger talk about the geology of the canyon and then headed out for our first hike,  We learned that Bryce is not really a canyon as it was not formed by a river but rather by erosion caused by thawing and freezing.  They have a monsoon season in August, heavy snowfall in winter and then over 200 days each year where the temperature is below freezing.  The constant freezing and thawing has resulted in the most beautiful panorama of hoodoos rising 1000 feet from the canyon floor. 

We started with a hike along the rim where the panoramic views of the hoodoos are outstanding. Darcy says it must have been a good day because Nancy took 115 pictures of hoodoos. The light was so much better the days we were in Bryce and we think they really show the true colors of the canyon.

Over the next 2 days we did 2 hikes below the rim where we went down 1000 feet and could see the hoodoos from the bottom.  Awesome.  We are proud of ourselves that we could do 2 hikes with that kind of elevation.  The fact that it was about 20 degrees F cooler than Zion or the Grand Canyon probably  made it a little easier.

Now that we have been to Zion, the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon, we can't decide which one we like the best.  Each has it own attraction and if you have a chance you should try and see all of them.

We left Bryce today and drove west along the Great Salt Lake.  We have driven US 15 through Salt City many times but have never seen the Great Salt Lake or the Bonneville Saltflats. We had no idea the lake was so big.  West from the Great Salt Lake to the Nevada border it is flat and white as far as the eye can see.

 

Tomorrow we are off to Reno to try our luck and then off to Lake Tahoe and San Francisco.