Bryce Canyon National Park is about 60 miles north of Zion. When we finished Zion we drove to a little town called Panquitch (pronounced pan-witch) and stayed in a very nice RV park there. It was a 24 mile trip to Bryce Canyon from there on very good two lane roads. Bryce is a long thin park with one main road going through it. The road is 18 miles long. The ranger at the gate suggested that we drive to the south end of the road and then stop at the various overlooks as we drove back north. It sounded pretty good to us so we pretty much followed that plan.
Bryce Canyon is beautiful in it’s own way. I’ve never seen anything that looks like it. Also, I usually think of a canyon as a place with two mountainous sides and a valley going through it. That’s not what Bryce is like. The road you travel on is on top of the mountain and all of the views are on the east side of the mountain. Some of the elevations were over 9000 feet. The views are fantastic and each is very different. They have designed the road so that each overlook is only a few short steps from the parking lot. There’s no need to hike a mile to see the sights. They say that from some of the overlooks you can see over 100 miles on a clear day.
They have several words they use to describe the views that I’ve never heard of before. A “hoodoo” is a pillar of rock, usually of fantastic shape, left by erosion. An “amphitheater” is a whole bunch of hoodoos put together in one place. Erosion is what has made Bryce Canyon the beautiful park it is and the process has taken millions of years.
