Finishing Zion, the Long Road into Bryce Canyon

 Tuesday, May 18 for Sunday, May 16, 2021

(Randy was fond of Smokey LONG before she knew me!)

We left that little town called Brian Head, and started towards Zion National Park from the east, going west into the Park. We were following Route 9, the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway.

Right after the entrance is a feature called Checkerboard Mesa. We have said before, and for lack of imagination, will keep saying it -- pictures cannot convey the size, the impressiveness, nor the "texture" of the scenes around almost every turn in the National Parks. From what we have seen, it doesn't matter what National Park, they have all been impressive.

The next features along this road are two tunnels, with a good bit of beauty in between each one.

(Shamelessly staged picture of Don climbing on rocks.)

The first tunnel was fairly short, as you can see below.

The road continued between the two tunnels.

When we got to the second tunnel, which is 1.1 miles long, there was a flagger allowing only one lane of traffic through the tunnel. We waited a good bit to get in, and finally did. The line coming into the other end of the tunnel, west to east, was about three times as long as ours had been, and we wondered what that would mean to us on the other end, returning.

A feature we had never seen in a tunnel, anywhere before, was "windows" in the tunnel facing the open side of the tunnel (rather than the mountain/stone side). The Park system called these windows "galleries" -- Randy liked that. It allowed a lot of light into the tunnel ...

... but also gave Randy from the passenger seat, the opportunity to take some unique pictures. We were driving, so many of them were blurry and deleted, but this one came out pretty well.

After the tunnels, we went through a series of switchbacks as we drove towards the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. A feature of the Drive was that to the south was a major Visitor Center, but to the North it was restricted to Zion Shuttle Buses. There was no real charge for the shuttle, but the reservations started the previous day at 5:00 PM local, and all spots were gone within three minutes. We skipped the shuttle, so could not see the North portion. Following are the pictures from the switchbacks and drive south towards the Visitor Center.

We didn't take pictures of this, but there is a story about the Visitor Center. The place was jammed -- cars everywhere, parked legally and illegally. After we tried that (!), we parked near one of the campgrounds and walked half a mile to the Visitor Center. Here are the things we look for at each Visitor Center at each Park. I look for postcards to send to the Grandsons, usually one each every day. Others get included from time-to-time. I look for the medallions to put on my walking stick, so to "earn" it, I try to hike some in each park. Randy looks for a Christmas ornament from each park -- I told here we'll need another Christmas tree just for those ornaments. Many/most of the Visitor Centers have a limit to how many people can be in the place at once, so there may be an employee outside the store portion letting people in according to how many are in the store. Masks are required, in spite of the CDC guidance.

We headed back out of Zion, again along Route 9. There was no problem getting through the tunnels, a short but manageable wait. We headed to Route 89 and Bryce Canyon, one of those places we had always heard about. Along the way, no longer in either Park, we still saw some wonderful things.

Buffalo!

Randy swears she didn't do it on purpose, but she got an artistic black-and-white of the same scene!

Bryce Canyon National Park isn't the only Park we experienced that does this, but there is another area we entered long before we got the official Park entrance. In this case, we were in Red Canyon, which is part of Dixie National Forest.

Imagine this -- it is now about 2:30 PM, we have been in Zion most of the morning, and had a short drive from Zion here. And we are faced with even more awe-inspiring beauty! (Please also include the picture of Randy with Smokey in this group of pictures.)

Finally, we made it to the official entrance to Bryce Canyon. By this time, it is about 4:30 PM.

Because it was getting later and light was changing (though still almost three hours from sunset), we went first to the Visitor Center, then set out on what they called "viewpoints," places to look into the Canyon from different places.

It probably isn't all that helpful, but Randy had me take a picture of this relief map in the Visitor Center, which helped her orient and lay out how we would proceed.

Our first of the "viewpoints" was called Sunset Point. Note the elevation.

Next was Inspiration Point.

Randy said, "No" to hiking the paved/unpaved trail to Upper Inspiration Point, so off went Don.

It wasn't very long, but it was steep. There were a couple places to stop and take further photos.

I think this was the top point of that short trail.

Another side note -- in the gift shops, they sell magnets that have the Geological Survey "button" which is usually placed at a highest point. I had not seen a real one, though I did not buy the magnets. If I had known they would be in every gift shop, I might have started that collection. Here was a real one at the top of Inspiration Point.

The trail on the way down. Does it convey how steep it was?

I could have hiked it (still higher?) to the next viewpoint, which was called Bryce Point. We did it by car.

The last of the viewpoints for the evening was called Paria Point.

We joke about all the "watch out for ... " signs (deer, elk, cattle, etc.), and we never see any large wildlife. Plenty of ground squirrels, chipmunks, lizards, and so on. We found a couple mule deer in our driving around the viewpoints.

That was it for the evening. We headed to another motel, to get prepared for more of Bryce Canyon on Monday.