It's raining ice in Bryce

Day 12

After a continental breakfast. We drove through the Dixie National Forest. It looks a bit like Dixie, with tree covered mountains (mostly firs, but there were some pines). In places, the trees were so symmetrical that they seemed to have been stamped down in photoshop. Parts of this area are also volcanic, with black lava flows breaking up the forest.

We arrived at Bryce Canyon, which is not actually a canyon, since it was not carved by a river. Ice and rain have carved the sandstone here into intricate sculptures called hoodoos. These are really amazing at first glance, but the long term effect of exploring the park is a bit like Grand Canyon...another overlook with a variation of the last view. Also, the Rim walk has a steep drop off with no railing, which is annoying after a bit.


I should mention that most National Parks in this area have bookshops which feature titles like "Death in the Grand Canyon," or "in Bryce," etc, detailing the grisly deaths of those who have fallen in the location you are touring. So there's a perfect gift to bring back to that goth friend back home.

The danger in Bryce is not flooding, since you are on the rim looking down, but lighting and wind are a problem. As we walked along the canyon walls, a storm started brewing, Just as we reached the rest area, a bolt of lighting hit the rim behind us. We jumped on the tram as a shower of pea sized hail buffeted the the foreign tourists we left behind. The hail was so thick it left a dusting of white on the park.

MarKay pointed something out about the tourists we were seeing; you can spot a European traveller by their shoes. Euro style shoes are from fitting with almost no soles, like a more stylish version of bowling shoes. They stick out from American shoes. In Zion we had lots of Germans, but several buses of French tourists were in Bryce during our visit.


We had a campsite in Bryce so we head back to cook dinner. The tent had survived the hail. We then headed over to the visitor center for a program on astronomy. It was not the light fluff for families I expected--it reminded me of a college seminar. Sean struggled through it and then we went outside to look through the big telescopes they had set up. Sean got to see Saturn and the Galilean moons, plus a globular cluster of about a million stars.

It was a fine end to the day.