Utah photo diary

Come with me to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon

I’ve just returned from a road trip through southern Utah and a visit to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. This is my fourth visit to these parks and what I like about pairing them together in one visit (they’re about a 2 hour drive apart), are the variation of views. In Zion Nat’l Park the main roads are in the valley so you’re looking up at everything unless you go for a hike to get to the top.

There is a road to the back exit of the park that winds its way up a bit but you don’t see the valley much from that side.

With Bryce Canyon, the main roads are around the top of the canyon (similar to the Grand Canyon) so you’re looking down at everything. It’s nice to go from feeling cocooned in towering rock to a bird’s eye view.

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“Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.” ~ R. Nixon

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Zion National Park

A back road into Zion. Shortly after this photo I saw three mountain goats perched up on a ledge like statues. It was so cool but I couldn’t take a picture since I was driving (this was taken from the side of the road).

Click on any photo to enlarge to full size~

Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon are smaller National Parks. I haven’t looked up a lot of the numbers but for comparison Zion is 146k acres and Bryce is only 35k acres. I was suprised by this because I thought Bryce Canyon was the larger of the 2. Maybe it’s the bird’s eye perspective that makes it seem that way.

Yosemite is 759k acres and The Grand Canyon is 1.2 million acres. Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres and the largest NP outside of Alaska is Death Valley in California, which is 3.4 million acres!

So you see, these are NP babies and can each be seen, for the most part, within a day- a couple more if you plan to do long hikes.

The Virgin River that runs through Zion. While the park was 100 degrees give or take a few degrees over the day, the river felt really nice- like a cool bath that was almost room temp.

We took a wee dip in the eastern end of the river with the rock walls all around.

View looking up and west from the river spot in the photo above. Being in a valley and watching the way the sun and shadows move throughout it is so mesmerizing. Even a cloud passing in front of the sun can create the most interesting shadows on the valley floor and walls.

This stream to the river was sparse but it fell into a grotto at the end of a short hike. It was nice to stand under it and get misted for the warm hike back.

The main lodge area approx halfway through the valley where everyone relaxes and eats food.
I didn’t mention, in the summer months it’s required to park at the entrance and ride the shuttle to the different stops. There are 9 stops but the shuttle didn’t stop at all of them, probably 5 of them this time.

I have gone during the off season when you’re allowed to drive through yourself and I have to say I prefer that. The shuttles would leave the stop when it was full and full meant every seat and inch of standing room was packed. When it’s 100 degrees it’s not great to be packed tight into a shuttle like that, especially since all hikers have to ride it as well and you have dirty, sweaty people with large hiking sticks and backpacks up in your business. :)

A unique part about Zion is you can drive through it to get to Bryce Canyon. When you enter the park it will fork after about a mile and to the left through the valley is where you have to take the shuttle. If you continue right it will take you up and around to the back entrance and there’s a very long tunnel through the moutain. You can see one of the windows above. The tunnel is 1.1 miles long and even has it’s own tripadvisor page. Can you imagine what it was like to carve over a mile long tunnel through that mountain? Crazy.

While there are some great hikes that maybe one day I can go on and photograph, this wasn’t the weather I’d want to do them in, so we have a typical view of what the average visitor may see when visiting the park.

Bryce Canyon

On the way to Bryce Canyon I took the route that circles north around Zion and up through some mountains. It got down to 59 degrees up there which was amazing. Up in the higher elevation were meadows of wildflowers. I didn’t take any photos of them but they were purple, yellow, and orange and so pretty. It was dense forest, wildflowers, and lots of deer with a cool breeze and blue sky. One of my favorite parts of the trip for sure and I’m glad I enjoyed it without bothering to try and capture it on camera.

We did however, happen across Cedar Breaks National Monument near the meadows and I stopped for a few photos~

This is Colorado Columbine which was one of the the abundant kinds of flowers up there.

These 2 images are from a Cedar Breaks lookout. Quite similar to what you’ll see in Bryce Canyon.

Bryce Canyon- full of the unique hoodoo towers, which is a tall spire of rock formed by erosion.

Again, click on any photo to enlarge~ These are from the Red Rock Canyon area.

Classic views of the canyon. It’s very much like the Grand Canyon except for the hoodoos. The north rim of the Grand Canyon is about 150 miles southeast of here.

Looking southeast ~ you can see the similar landscape to the Grand Canyon area in Arizona. I have photos from the Grand Canyon as well if you’re interested in a photo diary from there. Let me know! I didn’t go this year but 2 summers ago.

This is my favorite tree in Bryce Canyon~

I’ve taken a photo of it on each trip and here I’ve found one from when I went in winter~

I don’t remember the exact year I took this but it was probably 9-10 years ago. You can see it really hasn’t grown much in that time! It’s almost like a wild bonsai tree.

People setting out for a horse trek down into the canyon. Anyone can do a horse ride and I think these people were inexperienced because they were trying to go at a snails pace and someone yelled “Why is my horse going so fast??” and the leader of the group yelled back “Because he’s done this before!” Lol. But the horse was walking at a normal pace. I thought about them the rest of the day and how their ride went. To be fair, it would be slightly unnerving trusting an animal with your life on the tighter trail portions with far drop-offs but I imagine they also have self preservation instincts as well, so..

Some hoodoos and the “natural bridge”.

And there we have it, Zion and Bryce Canyon.

Of the two, I think Bryce is my favorite because of the visual perspective and it’s also higher elevation so it’s always 20+ degrees lower in temperature than Zion.
It also has far more trees, deer, and the interesting hoodoos. And less visitors because it’s farther out from the towns.

Let me know if you’d like to see the Grand Canyon + Petrified Forest in Arizona. I can do that at some point.

Anyway, have you been to these parks? What is your favorite National Park?
I have 3 on my “sooner than later” bucket list- Yellowstone, Glacier Nat’l Park and White Sands Nat’l Park. All so different but I know they’ll be amazing.

x,
Courtney

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