Bryce Canyon – Wintertime Pt 1

I have been to Bryce several times in my life, but the last time was about 8 or 9 years ago. We found a pretty good deal for a hotel and figured, what the heck, we’ll take our spring vacation early.

I decided that I would do Bryce in the winter because, well I have never seen it in the winter and thought it would be a new experience. And also because it has been so unseasonably warm lately, I was lulled into a false sense of security that the weather was going to be great! I could not be more right in the former, nor more wrong in the latter.

Day One: The drive down.

First things first we had to stop and give something to my parents and they agreed to meet us at subway just off a freeway exit. I knew the Lehi Roller Mills (made famous from the original Footloose movie) were in Lehi, but I didn’t know they were right off the freeway!  So managed to check that off the list of random places to go visit.

Almost the entire way down we were being rained on. Some of the higher passes it turned into a really slick and dangerous snowstorm. We saw multiple cars slide off at a pass before Holden. Here is somewhere shortly after Holden where we finally caught a break, but could see storms in the distance. (DBP Album).

And it’s back, ish. We thought we had blue skies ahead, but eventually we turned east onto 20 back into it. (DBP Album).

Oh crap this doesn’t look very promising. Beginning of HW20. (DBP Album).

Well it is not looking nearly as bad as that last pass was. It got a little worse but not to bad. (DBP Album).

And onto highway 89 we start to see some red rocks in the distance. (DBP Album).

And onto Scenic Byway 12 we approach Red Canyon. (DBP Album).

Which makes you go through 3 of these man blasted tunnels. (DBP Album). We explored Red Canyon a little more on the way home.

We were staying at Ruby’s Inn in Bryce Canyon City. Bryce Canyon is only a few more miles down the road. We found our hotel and checked in. It was near sundown and we were hungry after the long drive. So we thought we’d start out in the park tomorrow.

We had dinner at the Cowboy’s Buffet and Steak Room which is inside Ruby’s Inn. It was pretty good. Considering tourist town, the prices were pretty good and the food was good.

Bryce Canyon City has very little light pollution so I thought I would get some star pictures. Kind of kicking myself for not driving into the park (where there is significantly less light pollution) but this is still cool.  

It took me forever to figure out why a green pine tree came out yellow in my long exposure shot.. and then I realized the hotel had a floodlight barely illuminating it, but enough to make it yellow.

Day 2: Into the park!

Due to the weather, I had not planned on doing any hiking this trip. Just see the view points and relax. We did do the short trail to Mossy Cave which was awesome! I recommend it as a quick side trip to anyone visiting. It’s really only 7 minutes away from Ruby’s Inn. Now normally I would just include the trail chronologically with my vacation posts, but due to how our adventure worked out, and the fact that it was really cool, I decided that warranted it’s own post. You can find that here.

After we hiked Mossy Cave the weather was supposed to be bad for about an hour then just be cloudy. So we returned to our room, took our time and grabbed some lunch then decided to head into the park.

I am just going to throw this out here now. The weather was not great. The pictures I am about to post while cool and unique are not representative of the park and if you are here just learning of it, please come back for day 3. That said, let’s continue.

Bryce Canyon has a main road that is 18 miles long with a lot of amazing overlooks into the canyon. We started our day with Sunrise Point.

Well. Our first stop was awarded with some wildlife. A heard of deer were hanging out near the trail. I stayed on the trail and slowly walked by, but they did not seem as skittish as most deer I have encountered before.

I didn’t notice the baby until now. So cute! We watched for several minutes trying to be quiet and not disturb them. Then we decided to continue on to the overlook.

Uh oh. We seem to have fog. Normally, I love fog, and I think it’s great, but as you see, and will be further proven later Bryce Canyon is not where you want fog. It is an amazing canyon and you want to see it! I grew more and more upset as the day went on and this became a worsening problem. However even though the forecasts said we would have good weather today, and bad weather tomorrow, they were wrong. We returned the next day and had good weather. So, eventually I decided I am happy to have seen the canyon covered in fog. Definitely a unique experience.

Back to the deer. And… I never really thought about it before, but apparently deer squat to pee or poop. I guess I just assumed they did what horses do and just lift their tail. Kind of funny.

I love watching wildlife, but it was time to head on down the road.

Not much further down we saw a couple more deer. I guess, at least in winter, Sunrise Point is a good place to see them.

Foggy Bend as we head towards the next lookout. (DBP Album). We somehow managed to skip Sunset Point and went towards Bryce Point which is definitely uphill.

Wow. You can’t see anything!

YIKES! I know there is a deep canyon on either side of this this point out.

Bryce Point is probably my favorite view point in the park and we can’t see anything today. The fog made it kind of cool, but I was disappointed I couldn’t see anything.

This is from Inspiration Point.

The trail up was closed but I liked the foggy view.

From here we were feeling a bit discouraged as the forecasted day of good weather turned out to be a bust so we decided to head back towards the visitor center.

Giant alligator fossil. One of the many displays in the visitor center.

In the main lobby there were traffic cameras showing certain points in the park and they all looked clear. So I decided we should go see Natural Bridge again at only 9 miles down the road. Worst case scenario, if it gets too bad, we turn around.

Hrmm. Getting pretty foggy.

Apparently there has been a recent fire. I say recent due to the lack of new undergrowth. Looks like there was one back in 2009.

Natural Bridge. The name, like Bryce Canyon, is actually a misnomer. While I can see why it is called a bridge it has been decided at some point that bridges span water sources and arches do not. So technically it is an arch. Still cool.

And it is a pretty tall arch at that! Luckily it is close enough to the road that even with the fog we could see it fairly clearly.

Another view.

From here we decided well, we are halfway, may as well go all the way to the end. And again, if the weather gets too bad, we can always turn around.

I believe this is from Rainbow Point. This is the highest elevation in the park. The wind was really whipping up and as you can see there wasn’t much to see so we skipped Yovimpa Point.

Another foggy bend.

Rain and snow.

I made note of the order of viewpoints we did today, but it is still a little fuzzy due to the fog… But I believe this is Black Birch Canyon.

Iddy biddy little window.

Ponderosa Canyon.

Where we had a crow come say hello. I think this is where we saw crows last time.

This is the view from Agua Canyon. I was pretty sure Thor’s Hammer was in Queens Garden… but that looks like it… after reading the pamphlet it appears this is a similar feature called The Hunter. As you can see we are being snowed upon.

Farview Point lived up to it’s name in a roundabout way today, it did seem to offer the furthest view we saw all day.

It’s hard to see but there is another tall arch down there.

I did mention normally I like the fog right?

A random pullout has a nice view of the snow covered trees in the fog.

And this should be Swamp Canyon.

More foggy woods.

And our last stop today was Sunset Point. I kind of laughed when I realized that even though Sunrise and Sunset points are right next to each other, we somehow inadvertently started the day at Sunrise, and ended with Sunset.

I am glad we stopped here as this seemed to have the best views today.

Wall Street which, if I remember correctly, is where the Queens Garden trail lets you out if you connect to the Navajo loop. Or, as I glanced at the map to make sure I was right, you can also just do the Navajo Loop to come out and see that. Its actually pretty cool. Just a deep narrow canyon with a couple towering pines.

Quick foggy panoramic.

Here is the other end of the Navajo Loop Trail. Kind of wish we had hiked down there today. I think that wandering around in the hoodoos would be amazing in the fog!

And you can barely make out Thors Hammer in this shot.

I like the freshly coated trees and fog.

And on the way out we got the typical tourist shot with the sign. You can kind of see the blustery snow we were contending with all day.

All in all, the fog was actually pretty cool. However, if I did not have good weather the following day I would have been pretty disappointed with my trip. So please be sure to come back for tomorrows post to enjoy the amazing views this canyon has to offer.

When I booked my room I selected Lakeview. I did not remember there being a lake here, but I thought, hey it’s the same price why not. When we arrived we were told we had been moved. I was a little disappointed but it was technically an upgrade so I said sure. I later learned the Lakeview Lodge was closed entirely, so not a big deal. Anyway, point is, this is what the view would have been like. Not much, but at least it would have been a view other than the parking lot.

Later that evening the snow really started coming down. The weather forecasts said it would continue through 5 pm tomorrow. It almost scared me home early, but we decided to stay, although hotel bound as even with it being a tourist town there isn’t much to do in town. Luckily the forecasts were wrong as the next morning by the time we got up anyway, the weather was perfect!

I am going to go ahead and break it here, come back to see the what this canyon really can offer!