bryce canyon

dixie national park with zion in background
entering the red canyon

red canyon

red canyon

entrance to bryce

sunrise point

walking to queens garden

one of the many view points

rainbow point

natural bridge

the bridge

utah prairie dog

mule deer

a tribute to butch cassidy

Wednesday 27th April 2011.

Today we had about a 200km drive to reach Bryce Canyon, part of this drive takes us through the scenic byway which cuts through Dixie Forest. The drive starts off going through a canyon until it reaches a plateau where you can see Zion National Park in the distance. Along the way through the canyon it was about zero degrees and there was plenty of snow on the sides of the road. You could see where the snow and ice had melted during the previous day and had run across the road. Most of this was just pools of water. As we travelled we came around a corner and you could see some ice on the road. I slowed down and went over the ice but directly after the ice was what look like water, wrong! it was black ice. The car lost traction and slid to the side and felt like we were going to do a 360 spin. A little bit of professional driving kept the car on the road and avoided near death. Well at least a crash anyway. I think Cassidy nearly had an accident in her pants, (-:

We arrived safely at the entrance to Bryce where we paid our entrance fee and set off armed with the map. There are numerous walks and vantage points all through the park. We started off at the sunrise point where we did a walk down into the canyon known as the Queens Garden. From there we drove the length of the park stopping at all the listed viewing areas.

On the way out of the park we stopped and looked at some mule deer that were grazing and took some photos. There were also prairie dogs that had come out of their burrows. The prairie dogs were so cute and some of them were even doing their call which was also very cute.

We had about a two hour drive at the end to get to Page Arizona which is now taking us closer to the Grand Canyon. Hoping to be at the Grand Canyon by Friday..