The first time we visited Bryce Canyon National Park we were on our motorcycles in the snow. We loved seeing the snow capped hoodoos, but were leery of hiking down into the valley for fear that we would not have the perseverance to hike back out. With all of the hiking we have done recently we felt like we were in better shape to survive the steep uphill hike out of the canyon on this visit. When we entered the park, a camp host stopped and gave Dean suggestions about our hike. Dean explained to her that we really wanted to go down into the canyon and walk among the hoodoos, but we did not want to die trying to get back out. She suggested that we hike down from Sunrise Point on the Queen’s Garden Trail, then decide once in the Garden if we wanted to continue on the Navajo Trail and come back out at Sunset Point for a total of a little over 3 miles of hiking or just backtrack to where we started – a slightly shorter hike. Here is the good part, she assured us that going down was the hardest and since it was a slightly easier grade going down from Sunset Point we should do that and then go up at Sunset Point on the Navaho Trial- hahaha! It is never harder to go down than up unless you have the ability to defy gravity (and I do not). We did manage to make it both to the Garden and also back up to the top, but look closely at the switchbacks in the pictures below to see the nearly vertical ascent required to leave the canyon. We also made a short video to document the hike posted below.
Mouse over pictures for caption or click to enlarge and start slide show:
That day with the hike and the lunch buffet in the lodge following may be my favorite of the whole trip, excepting the lava tubes of course 😉
hahaha – the lava tubes were “special”