Day 15: Bryce Canyon

So we drove a kind of diagonal slash across Utah, going from the Uinta Basin to Bryce Canyon. We checked fire info online first, and the route looked ok. Nonetheless, it was still kind of unnerving the first time we drove through a random canyon and lost cell reception. There wasn't exactly a lot of people around, and the heat would be pretty brutal to walk some distance for help with a 5 year old. And... forest fires around. Not cool. Still, at this point of the trip canyons were still kind of novel (as the trip would go on, though, they became routine or even annoying - no cell service, after all).

We drove through one forested area that had several smoldering, smokey sites... so you could see exactly where the smoke was coming from, but no flames. Later in the day, we could see massive plumes of smoke rising from distant mountains. 

This was the second day of driving since Boulder, and the second brutally long day - over 6 hours, following a 7 hour day. This is too much for a 5 year old. She did ok, but we were really struggling and fighting by the end. We finally rolled into the national forest (which I'd like to look into camping in next time) that seems to inevitably be outside the national park, and it's part of a pretty strikingly red canyon (aptly named... Red Canyon).

So Bryce is a busier national park than the Badlands. They have a shuttle system that their website pushes, but we didn't run into any parking problems. But there were still a lot of people around. The camping is $15 a night and felt very utilitarian to me. There are bathrooms, which is always nice, but other than that I preferred the wide open and rustic Badlands campground. This was cramped, yet still gave you an isolating feeling, where the Badlands campground felt more communal... perhaps simply because you did have more space if you wanted it. 

After we set up the tent, we went off to finally see the canyon. We drove to one of the points, which happened to also be the trailhead for the Navajo Loop Trail. We took some pictures, then at Kiddo's urging started down the trail. Again I underestimated her and us - she historically was just not a hiker, so I kept saying I didn't think we'd do the whole thing. We also had to deal with my fear of heights - I am scared of heights that have no railing or other adequate safety features... and my fear gets a little crazy when my daughter is around that kind of situation. She handled it beautifully - I kept telling her I was going to be scared, and I kept asking her to promise she'd hold my hand the whole time. She kept promising, and she was great about it. We accidentally chose the less scary direction for the way down, which was good. Less scenic, but a good warmup. 

So we get to the bottom, and after you get through a narrow gap in between two hoodoos (see above), you're out at the canyon bottom. Kiddo was just thrilled. She was bouncing around yelling "This is awesome!" and just having a great time.

I had some trouble with fear on the way back up, so I wasn't particularly good at turning and admiring the view, but we did alright for ourselves. Also, dark wasn't far off, and there was sleep to be had.