American Southwest 4: Bryce Canyon to Jacob Lake

American Southwest 4: Bryce Canyon to Jacob Lake

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon was extra special for us because Dave’s old school friend Nigel drove all the way from Las Vegas, where he was attending a conference, to visit us – a monumental effort, especially as he had to return the next day. Thank you, Nigel! We managed to squeeze in a little pre-Nigel walk – the charming Mossy Cave hike, which was only a couple of km out and back, but very pretty. We met up in the late afternoon at the ‘Ruby Inn’ hotel in Bryce “City” (can a “City” have only two streets?) and Nigel joined us for a trip into the park in Big Bertha, to see the sunset over the canyon. Now, Nigel lives in a very scenic part of Germany, but we think that even he was wowed by the scenery! Later, after an aperitif in the truck, we enjoyed a good steak dinner at the hotel. Not willing to waste a minute of our time, we rose early the next morning and re-entered the park the to watch the sunrise. We then bid farewell to Nigel having returned him to his car at the motel. The next day, we re-visited the park and hiked the Queen’s Garden trail (3 km, 137m elevation), walking amongst the beautiful pink and white hoodoos.

Belly of the Dragon

On our way around the loop to Page, we stopped here for a very short walk into a winter wonderland. We crossed under the road through a tunnel into a river bed that was caked in snow. Really nice.

Toadstool Hoodoos

Just before Page was a short hike to some more interesting Hoodoo rock formations. It was fun to explore them on foot for a couple of hours.

Wire Pass Slot Canyon

The next day we back-tracked a little to visit the Wire Pass slot canyon, a much easier canyon to traverse. We took a couple of pictures, but the videos are more interesting.

The New Wave

The ‘old Wave’ is a much-visited wave rock formation with a limited number of permits issued per day. People can wait for months after applying via a random lottery for their application to be successful, after which they can complete the challenging hike. We elected to visit the easier, permit-less “New Wave” which gives a taste of what the star attraction is like.

Horseshoe Bend

Horseshoe Bend, just outside Page, features on the Arizona State sign and is quite a sight. We stopped for an hour and enjoyed the sunshine before heading on towards Zion National Park.

Navejo Bridge

On our way to Zion NP, we crossed this magnificent structure at Lee’s Ferry and Dave walked across the old bridge (left in photo). We camped that night just beyond the bridge below the Vermillion cliffs.

We climbed up to the Jacob Lake forest on the Grand Staircase Escalante and stopped for a hike amongst the trees and snow (4km). We then descended from the high forest and once again crossed into Utah.