A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow*

Short Version:
We drive through some deserts and commit vehicular manslaughter on our way to a spectacular place full of magical rocks that gets really flipping cold at night.

Long Version:
The road from Goblin Valley to Bryce Canyon is a Scenic Byway, and passes through all manner of strange and veautiful regions:
- sandy, dune-filled desert
- rocky, jagged desert
- hilly, rounded desert
- desert mesas and buttes
- deserted desert
- desert full of deserted pickup trucks
- desert towns, falling down
- cliffs
- bizarre rock formations
- sweeping vistas
- mountains
- forests
- red rock hillsides
- orange rock hillsides
- yellow rock hillsides
- black rock hillsides
- white rock hillsides
- stripey hillsides

After the stripey hillsides, we reached Bryce Canyon Natioal Park, but not before the Reaper harvested another squirrel. For some reason every roadkill squirrel we've seen (apart from the pancaked furry red splodge ones) adopts in death a super-cute pose, lying supine with front paws held just under the chin, rear legs splayed out in front. They look like they're actors in some children's stage show who have been asked to be dead in a non-threatening, overdone, obvious, cartoony sort of way.

It cost far too much to camp in the National Park, so we left, and went next door to the National Forest. The dedicated campground had a fee as well, so we drove on down the road to a spot by a creek, set ourselves up, and ate burritos and chocolate until it was time to go to sleep.

We awoke late, largely because the ice on the windows was blocking all the light. It was seriously cold. We debated the relative coldnesses of this morning v the morning at Polecat Creek at the front end of the Big Day of Yellowstone, and agreed the latter was freezier.

We made our way back in to the National Park, to the Visitor Center where we found free internets and an informational screen which said it had got down to -2 degrees overnight. That explains why my feets got cold. The informational signage around the place was busy telling us that the park has over two hundred freeze/thaw days each year, which is a lot, and is one of the primary causes for the startling rock formations which abound there: during the day the water runs into nooks and crannies in the rock; then when it freezes overnight the expansion** stresses the already-weak rock and eventually splits it.

I'm not going to try to describe the formations; I know for a fact that Lovely Wife took umpteen photographs, so you can jolly well wait for her to upload them***. Suffice to say they were startling and stunning and realy really cool.

We ogled the rocks from three of the park's hiking trails: The Queen's Garden, the Navajo Loop, and the Peek-a-Boo Loop. Apparently the combo is a 10km, 4-5 hour hike. We ran it in two hours, but half of that was spent taking photographs. We then drove to the end of the park - it extends out along a limb of a high plateau - and took photographs at the many viewpoints accessible from the roadway. Most were so close to the road that you bareky had to leave your vehicle; those which involved a short walk tended to be fairly empty. The exception was Sunset Point, which afforded some seriously awesome views once you managed to squeeze between the sizeable Amerikans and the teeming hordes of East Asians, all of whom seemed to be speaking incredibly loudly. We've seen very few East Asians on the journey so far (Chinatowns in Vancouver and San Francisco excepted), which is a huge change from Auckland. We had to laugh at one point out near the end of the park, when we watched a middle-aged woman of East Asian extraction attempting to park her car. In a deserted parking lot. She ended up using two spaces for her compact hatchback. Sigh.

We found showers at the General Store (of course) and then hit the road west, towards Red Canyon and Thunder Mountain, and a ride we'd heard some very good things about.








* = Ebenezer Bryce said that, some time in the mid-late 1800s, in response to a query on what it was like to live near the canyon that would later wear his name

** = Water expands when it freezes. This is unlike most substances, and is why, when you put a beer in the freezer to chill it quickly you should always remember to not forget it's in there

*** = Or, if you're an impatient scallywag, you can ask Mr Google to show you some pictures. Make sure the stupid "Safe Search" filter is set to OFF, cos you never know your luck.