Zion & Bryce – A Tale of Canyons & Hoodoos

Zion National Park – Kolob Canyons

After a late night on the road, we took advantage of an opportunity to sleep in at our hotel in Salina. We checked out at 10:30am and headed south towards Zion National Park.

Our first stop was at the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center. This is a much less visited part of Zion, as it is isolated from the main canyon where most everyone spends their time.

The Kolob Canyon Road is only 5 miles long, but comes with some amazing views!!

There are also three different trails along the way. We decided to hike the Timber Creek Overlook Trail at the very end of the drive. It is a one mile out-and-back trail. The trail wasn’t overly difficult, but the heat was bearing down on us. The views and the breeze from the top were just what the doctor ordered!!

We had planned to drive in to the main part of Zion National Park once the temperatures cooled. The only problem was the temperature didn’t drop. Even at 6:30pm it was still around 100 degrees outside.

Instead, we decided to make this our laundry evening. It worked out nicely since we would be staying at this hotel for two nights in a row. It was just under $20 to get all of our laundry washed and dried at the laundromat. We thought that was pretty good!

Zion National Park – Zion Canyon

The next morning, we left the hotel at 6:10am! We had heard from just about everyone, that the visitor center’s parking lot fills up quickly. If you don’t get a spot there, you will either have to circle the lot until someone leaves or park in the nearby town of Springdale.

Another benefit of getting to the park early was beating the heat!!

Thankfully, we had no problems finding a parking spot and quickly got in the line for the shuttle. The shuttle is the only way to access the main canyon of the park. We rode the shuttle to the last stop – Temple of Sinawava.

The Riverside Walk is a 2.2-mile trail that ends where The Narrows trail begins. We felt like tackling The Narrows may have been a little too much for our family, so we decided to hike the Riverside Walk. It was an incredible hike!

I’m sure the boys will tell you their favorite part was getting to throw rocks in the river! Haha!

Really though, the boys enjoy doing pretty much anything with rocks! Climbing is another one of their favorite activities!

It was hard to stop taking pictures in Zion because literally everything is amazing! Two of our favorite spots were the Courtyard of the Patriarchs…………..

and the Great White Throne/Angels Landsing area!

We also thought it was neat that the Patriarch mountains were named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!!

The temperature was reasonable during our time in the park, but as afternoon approached, it started creeping up to 100 again. We had some Dominos pizza for dinner and then took the boys to a splash pad in the town of Hurricane!

Bryce Canyon National Park

The following morning, we said goodbye to La Verkin and began the 2-hour drive to Bryce Canyon National Park.

Fortunately for us, the fastest way to get to Bryce Canyon was to drive through a portion of Zion via the Zion – Mount Carmel Highway. It has to be one of the most beautiful drives we have ever done!!

The main canyon area of the park is called the Bryce Amphitheater. Our first view of it was from Sunset point and boy is it a view!! It’s very different from anything we saw at Arches or Zion.

I had read that the Navajo Loop Trail (1.3 miles) was one of the more unique trails in the park. That’s where we headed first! It was definitely unique and beautiful and quite strenuous! Oops!

Can you count the number of switchbacks as the trail descends into the canyon?

As I said, it definitely was a unique hike!

Here’s a view of all the switchbacks from the bottom! It was very crowded at the beginning of the hike and then, for whatever reason, the crowd kind of dissipated.

A term that we quickly became familiar with today was “Hoodoos”. Bryce Canyon National Park has no shortage of them! Hoodoos are bright orange or tan rock spires.

One of the most well-known Hoodoos in the park is called Thors Hammer! We happened to see it towards the end of our hike. Here it is!

After some food from the Bryce Canyon General Store, we continued down the main park road to see what else the park had to offer. Our first stop was at the Bryce Point area. The views of Bryce Amphitheater were spectacular!

Next up was a stop at Natural Bridge. We were interested to see how it compared to the Natural Bridge back home in Virginia. I think we might be a little partial to ours, but this one was pretty good too!

Bryce Canyon road ends at Rainbow Point, which is the highest viewpoint in the park at 9,115 feet. It was a great place to end our time at Bryce Canyon!!

That just about wraps up our time in Utah. Tomorrow is a long day on the road, which will get us in position for Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks and then Yosemite!!

Unfortunately, once we cross into Nevada, Shannon will be able to say she is the first one in our family to have been to all 48 contiguous states. She took a trip to California with her social work people while she was at Ferrum College. I was trying to find a way to hit California before Nevada, but it would require way too much driving. Haha!

Oh well. Shannon, you got me this time!