Beautiful Bryce !!!

The ‘Travel’ channel is one my favorite channels on TV. True to it’s name, most of their programs are geared towards travel explorations to different places. One of the programs ‘The Secrets of Zion and Bryce Canyon’ is the inspiration for this blog. Actually…it reminded me that a post on Bryce Canyon was long pending!! So here’s my attempt to capture the beauty of another natural wonder – BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK!!!

Bryce is located in the same state as Zion National Park, on which I had written a post last month, the state of the NBA Team ‘Jazz’..you guessed it right – “UTAH”!!!

The drive from Zion to Bryce was about two hours, but to me it seemed like just about a few minutes coz I felt I just didn’t have enough time to taken in the beauty that lay all around me. Towering mountains, large pine trees and stunning, peaceful meadows…well…I just ran out of words to describe how beautiful the scenery was. It was like staring at a beautiful painting!!

I was expecting Bryce to be similar to Zion, but I was in for a Big Big surprise…the two parks could not be more different. While water was the reason behind the formations of the Zion and Bryce Canyons, it took different forms in creating these two national parks. The Zion canyon was the eroding effect of the Virgin River, while Bryce canyon was formed by the eroding effect of water in the form of rain, ice and snow.

Bryce Canyon presented a magnificent picture of awesome rock formations. Huge peaks, beautifully carved by rain, snow and ice stood towering. As I looked around, I wondered how these towering narrow formations kept from falling apart. The formations were tall, they were narrow and yet were held together by some invisible force. The towering formations are called hoodoos, grottos, walls or arches, depending on the shape they took. As I stood at ‘Sunrise Point’ (one of the popular points to view sunrise) overlooking the canyon, it was hard to believe how something as simple as water could carve out such beautiful structures. Well…nature has its ways!

One of the popular trails at Bryce is the ‘Navajo’ trail. Starting at the Sunset Point, Navajo, pronounced ‘Nava-ho’, is a trail that takes you through the heart of bryce and through the towering hoodos. It’s about a 1.3 mile round trip that takes you down into the canyon and loops around as you make your way back up to Sunset point. While on the trail you get to see Two-Bridges, Thors Hammer and Wall Street. These names seem weird, but they are just names given to the different rock formations. As you get to the bottom of the trail, you enter a garden of pine and oak trees. At places, this trail gets steep, and one has to be careful so as to avoid a steep fall, especially so during the rains. But I visited this place in May and the timing was perfect. Like all other trails, going downhill on the Navajo trail was not difficult. As I kept going down and down, I realized how miniscule I felt near the towering hoodoos that stood guard all around. It was an amazing journey that showed the power of water! Once I got to the bottom of the trail, it was time to climb back up to where we started. This was a loop and hence we did not have to climb back up the same we came down. I have to confess, that climbing up was more strenuous, however I was complimented by a fellow traveler to be the only person he saw with a smile climbing up!!! But I guess that was at the beginning of the climb up…if only he had seen me half way up the trail…the comment would have been quite different ! lol…..

I do not know if I can ever put in words my experiences at bryce and zion, but I am glad that I was fortunate to visit these beautiful places in my lifetime and I sure wish I could go visit them again and a special thanks to the person who planned it all…thank you! :)