Our 100 Day Trek through the US of A, part 14, Bryce

The bottom of the trail down

Bryce Canyon is just stunning.

This the main attraction: hoodoos

The story goes that when the first Superintendent of the park service Stephen Mather came from Zion on a visit passing by Bryce, his accompanying rangers asked him to detour and see this phenomenon.

They asked him to close his eyes and led him to the cliff edge, before he was allowed to open his eyes. He was said to have gasped.

Half a mile above the floor

Many consider seeing the hoodoos (geologists call these spires or tent rocks or fairy chimneys: hoodoos) almost a religious experience.

No picture can depict what one feels seeing this for the first time.

Once again we are led down a road intro the park for sixteen miles and at view points you peer down, but in reality you can skip all that, because within a mile of entering the park, you should go to sunset or sunrise point and see the amphitheater below with thousands of spires which will enchant you.

Millions of years of nature's work
There are people down there

A steep path called the Navajo loop brings you to the bottom and allows you a different perspective of these hoodoos.

We did not venture down. At our age and condition: down would have been the easy part, but somebody would have to carry us back up and we doubted that we would find volunteers down there.

Again the pictures must do the work for me, as I feel incapable of adequately describing the views.

The name Bryce comes from the Mormon family sent here by a bishop from Salt Lake City to colonize here. Ebenezer Bryce settled in the valley just below the spires and laid a road out and started cattle ranching.

Been eager had his cows down there

He apparently was not too impressed with his surroundings, because his answer to questions by visitors about the hoodoos was: it is an awful place to loose your cows in.

Easy to lose cows here.
 

On the way back we had two missions: wine and fresh food for the rest of our week in Escalante.

The closest supermarket is 100 miles away, leaving us with general stores in the small towns around us. The grocery and general store just outside park had hot dogs and sliced meat and tinned food for for the campers around the park in a section behind the tourist souvenir department.

The next store in Tropic on the way home had some fresh vegetables and even 8 types of meat, from cut up chicken to sirloin. So we were saved for a few days from starvation.

This expedition resulted from our visit the first day to our local general store, where we found onion and frozen sliced meat and a few potatoes.

Or people here have bad food habits or big vegetable plots behind their homes (in desert?) and slaughter their own stock or travel a 100 miles a few times a month.

As for the alcohol, here in Utah state controlled shops sell a limited selection of liquor and wine, not on Sunday of course.

The only arch here or is it bridge?

Beer is found in the grocery isles. In our town the local Outfitters shop for tourists who want to trip into the wilderness has the license to sell liquor.

Water did this

So at the end all is well in our household again

Till the next blog.

 

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