Up on top of Bryce, it’s all pine forest as far as the eye can see. What’s the big fuss?
We caught the park shuttle to Sunset Point for a first walk this morning – and it was like dropping sharply off the edge of the earth into an alien landscape.
It feels like emerging from monochrome, to peer over a vast bowl of fantastical sandstone spires, candy stripes of red and orange, pink and white, piled up against each other in their thousands, stretching away to the horizon. I’ve never seen anything else like it. It certainly felt like stepping out of America.. perhaps more like Turkey or the Middle East or the depths of the Gobi desert. Of course I’d seen photos, but as we found in trying to take our own, you can’t do the scale of it justice. Or the quietness.
We took a three mile walk straight down into the canyon – something like thirty switchbacks down into the shade between rock walls, passing by what they call the Silent City. A few Douglas Firs – 750 years old - survive the shade of those tall walls. We walked on the Navajo Loop-Queens Garden trail around the canyon floor, stopping for lunch at the site of another frankly unbelievable filmset. Drinking huge amounts of water too.
By the time we got up to the rim, I struck migraine. Luckily we got back to the campground, only about another half a mile, before I could get into my comedy drunk routine. (And thanks for the extra pills Helen, I had them with me!) I needed an hour passed out in the back of the RV, then as the heat of the day lifted, we took a gentle shuttle ride back to the widest view of the Bryce Amphitheatre for a few more Kodak Moments. Gorgeous.
Movie night at the Listers – R and T and me cuddled up to watch Bedtime Stories, with a bowl of popcorn to hand – and then all went to sleep at the same time. Goodnight!
We caught the park shuttle to Sunset Point for a first walk this morning – and it was like dropping sharply off the edge of the earth into an alien landscape.
It feels like emerging from monochrome, to peer over a vast bowl of fantastical sandstone spires, candy stripes of red and orange, pink and white, piled up against each other in their thousands, stretching away to the horizon. I’ve never seen anything else like it. It certainly felt like stepping out of America.. perhaps more like Turkey or the Middle East or the depths of the Gobi desert. Of course I’d seen photos, but as we found in trying to take our own, you can’t do the scale of it justice. Or the quietness.
We took a three mile walk straight down into the canyon – something like thirty switchbacks down into the shade between rock walls, passing by what they call the Silent City. A few Douglas Firs – 750 years old - survive the shade of those tall walls. We walked on the Navajo Loop-Queens Garden trail around the canyon floor, stopping for lunch at the site of another frankly unbelievable filmset. Drinking huge amounts of water too.
By the time we got up to the rim, I struck migraine. Luckily we got back to the campground, only about another half a mile, before I could get into my comedy drunk routine. (And thanks for the extra pills Helen, I had them with me!) I needed an hour passed out in the back of the RV, then as the heat of the day lifted, we took a gentle shuttle ride back to the widest view of the Bryce Amphitheatre for a few more Kodak Moments. Gorgeous.
Movie night at the Listers – R and T and me cuddled up to watch Bedtime Stories, with a bowl of popcorn to hand – and then all went to sleep at the same time. Goodnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment