The campground near Ruby's Inn is still about 3 miles from Bryce. From camp all I could see was normal land with trees growing on it. I wasn't impressed, and being tired I considered just hanging out in camp and working on another puzzle. But the Tour was going to shuttle groups in to the park in the morning and then come back for us in the afternoon, so Kim, Debbie, and I decided that since we were here we should at least go check out the park. For once we managed to get onto the first shuttle, as everyone else seemed to be sleeping in this morning.

Ice on the grass and trees from the sprinklers over night.

On the walk over to breakfast we noticed that some of the sprinklers had been left on overnight, and so now there was a circle of ice on the grass and long icicles hanging from the small trees. They say that here at Bryce it gets below freezing about 200 mornings each year. This was one of them. I was wearing my long finger gloves and my earmuffs.

The shuttle dropped us off at the general store, which was also very close to the rim overlooking Bryce. We walked over to the rim and I was finally getting impressed. I had thought that after both the Grand Canyon and then Zion, that I would have seen all that I wanted to see, but now at Bryce I was seeing something more. The rock formations here are on a slightly smaller scale, but then you can get up closer to them and they are fasinating. The erosion removes everything, leaving these pillars called Hoodoos, which I can remember by thinking that it sounds like Voodoo. These Hoodoos were just everywhere.

Hoodoos

Hiking Bryce.

More Bryce.

Kim in Wall Street.

Looking down the switchback trail towards Wall Street.

We had a map showing the trails and so were checking out our options. We decided on a hike to The Queen's Garden, about 3 miles round trip. The trail went down off of the rim and right in among all of the Hoodoos. About 3 places a small tunnel was actually cut through the rock as part of the trail. Finally down at The Queens Garden, we found some nice logs to sit on and stopped to relax and have a snack. Looking around I finally figured out, with Kim and Debbie's help, that the top portion of one of the Hoodoos looked exactly like a famous portrait of Queen Victoria from England.

From the Queens Garden, we checked the map again and found that if we extended our hike just a bit, then we could make it into a loop by cutting over to The Navajo Trail. After we got there we were very glad that we did. This trail was amazing. The part we were on was called Wall Street, because it went along a gully between very high cliff walls. In this gully were two full grown douglas fir trees, and they looked to be very much out of place, as the cliffs were very tall and the space between the walls was very small. But here these trees were growing anyway, and they were supposed to be about 750 years old.

At the top end of Wall Street, the gully just stopped, but the trail kept going by going into a constant pattern of tight switchbacks going up the wall. I thought of counting them but never got around to it, but there must have been 40 to 50 switchbacks before we got back up to the rim. We tried taking a picture looking down, but it just doesn't capture the real effect.

Back at the rim, we stopped to have our lunch, and were wishing that the public shuttle was running again. It was still too early for our Tour shuttles to come back for the afternoon pickups. Finally we walked the easy half mile back to the general store, and then decided to hike another half mile over to the visitor center.

The visitor center had a film showing the park, and so we sat and watched it. No sooner had the film started than Debbie was out. Fast asleep. I put her head on my shoulder to keep her from falling over and she stayed there for the duration of the film. After the visitor center we went out to wait for the shuttle. We knew that it was supposed to pick people up at the general store and not at the visitor center, but we figured that if we sat next to the road in plain sight, then they might see us and pick us up. We were in luck, as soon the first shuttle came by and we got in. It turned out that the shuttle didn't know where the general store was, so we had to help them find it.

Back in camp, we were happy to be taking down our tents a day early, as we were all looking forward to a nice comffy bed and a warm room, plus of course the first episode of Survivor. The camp looked very different now, as the wind was no longer blowing and the sun was out and it wasn't cold anymore. But that was ok, we still wouldn't miss camping and were very happy to be motelling.

After carrying our small bags over to registration and checking in, we almost had to carry them back to camp again, as our room was in the outer building that was closest to the campground. At least we wouldn't have far to roll our bikes, or to take our bags in the morning. After settling in, Debbie and I decided to go try out the hot tub while Kim stayed to catch up on her postcards and get her shower. This was a different hot tub, very big, and all the jets seemed to come up from the seat and not from the sides. It beat us up good.

Jerry had dinner with us again this evening. We had mentioned Survivor to him a few days ago and it turns out that Jerry is also a faithful watcher of the show. So we invited Jerry over to our room to watch with us. Since Debbie didn't really care about Survivor, she volunteered to go to the tour briefing and to pick up the routesheets for the next day.

Survivor was great. This season they were in the Pearl Islands in Panama, and the theme was pirates. There was this one big guy named Rupert who looked like he was a real pirate. Rupert was very good for the show. He fit right in by stealing from the other tribe, as he said that is what pirates do.

Totals for the day were 0 miles with about 4 miles of hiking.

Go to the next day.