On Saturday (7/5), we headed to Bryce National Park. Some of you may know of Bryce because of Aaron Ralston, the hiker that got his arm trapped and almost died. That didn't happen to us. We drove about 2 hours northeast to get to Bryce.
When we arrived, it was raining and cold. To pass time, we drove the entirety of the park to look at all the lookout points. The picture to the above is of us
freezing at one of the look out points. Notice Emmy in the pinic tablecloth poncho - very stylish. There is no room for pride when you are cold, and it is raining. It is a really cool park. It is like Wheeler Geologic Area on steriods... and red. They have lots of hoodoos that are such cool formations. I think this was my favorite park to look at that we visited this
trip. Our first stop gave us a great view over a lot of hoodoos (see right). Then, we viewed the
Natural Bridge, which we later learned is not a bridge, but an arch. A natural bridge is created by water carving away at the rock. This area had no water flowing through it. Nonetheless, it was a pretty cool
formation. We at our packed lunches in the lobby of the hotel just outside the park gates. After lunch the rain let up, and we could take "arguably one of the best 3 mile hikes" according to the park's radio station. It was a really cool hike. The first part of it, we hiked through an area called
Wall Street. It had towering walls, switchbacks, and such a cool red. It was gorgeous! The picture to the left is looking back at some of the switchbacks of Wall Street. The picture below shows a very tiny
Claire, Emmy, and me in between the red walls at the bottom of Wall Street. Then we followed the bottom of the canyon on Queen's Trail before preceding back up to complete our circle. We saw a rock I dubbed "ET"; check it out below, and see if you can see ET .. it is the white rock in the background. The walk across the bottom is much more sandy than Wall Street. Apparently, this is an ancient lake bed. I really like the very bottom picture with the horses/mules because it is such a contrast to the other sandstone rock. The trees look like they are hanging on for dear life. I liked this hike. It was the only one we
did in the park, but it was definitely worth the wait. We headed back to Zion (our permenant camp location) to have supper. We had hamburgers with fried potatoes and green beans. Not too bad. After supper, we went on a short hike to Emerald Pools in Zion. I am pretty sure this would have been a more intriguing spot in the daylight. By the time we went, it was pretty dark, and we couldn't see the emerald color of
the pools. It is one of the only areas of the park where the water drips over the rocks and makes an oasis of sorts. We caught the tail end of the the Ranger Program,
Water: Friend or Foe? It was talking about flash floods; quite a scary thing if you ask me! We headed to bed, once again waiting for the cool breeze to relieve us from the heat of the tent.
On Saturday (7/5), we headed to Bryce National Park. Some of you may know of Bryce because of Aaron Ralston, the hiker that got his arm trapped and almost died. That didn't happen to us. We drove about 2 hours northeast to get to Bryce. 
When we arrived, it was raining and cold. To pass time, we drove the entirety of the park to look at all the lookout points. The picture to the above is of us freezing at one of the look out points. Notice Emmy in the pinic tablecloth poncho - very stylish. There is no room for pride when you are cold, and it is raining. It is a really cool park. It is like Wheeler Geologic Area on steriods... and red. They have lots of hoodoos that are such cool formations. I think this was my favorite park to look at that we visited this 
trip. Our first stop gave us a great view over a lot of hoodoos (see right). Then, we viewed the Natural Bridge, which we later learned is not a bridge, but an arch. A natural bridge is created by water carving away at the rock. This area had no water flowing through it. Nonetheless, it was a pretty cool 
formation. We at our packed lunches in the lobby of the hotel just outside the park gates. After lunch the rain let up, and we could take "arguably one of the best 3 mile hikes" according to the park's radio station. It was a really cool hike. The first part of it, we hiked through an area called Wall Street. It had towering walls, switchbacks, and such a cool red. It was gorgeous! The picture to the left is looking back at some of the switchbacks of Wall Street. The picture below shows a very tiny 
Claire, Emmy, and me in between the red walls at the bottom of Wall Street. Then we followed the bottom of the canyon on Queen's Trail before preceding back up to complete our circle. We saw a rock I dubbed "ET"; check it out below, and see if you can see ET .. it is the white rock in the background. The walk across the bottom is much more sandy than Wall Street. Apparently, this is an ancient lake bed. I really like the very bottom picture with the horses/mules because it is such a contrast to the other sandstone rock. The trees look like they are hanging on for dear life. I liked this hike. It was the only one we 
did in the park, but it was definitely worth the wait. We headed back to Zion (our permenant camp location) to have supper. We had hamburgers with fried potatoes and green beans. Not too bad. After supper, we went on a short hike to Emerald Pools in Zion. I am pretty sure this would have been a more intriguing spot in the daylight. By the time we went, it was pretty dark, and we couldn't see the emerald color of 
the pools. It is one of the only areas of the park where the water drips over the rocks and makes an oasis of sorts. We caught the tail end of the the Ranger Program, Water: Friend or Foe? It was talking about flash floods; quite a scary thing if you ask me! We headed to bed, once again waiting for the cool breeze to relieve us from the heat of the tent.
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