Cedar City to Tropic

We set out a little later than planned for the drive to Tropic, near the entrance of Bryce Canyon National Park.  Our route took us back through Cedar Breaks and past Brian Head.  Though we were tempted to drive to the top and gaze again at those wonderful views, we decided it was prudent to continue so we can gaze upon Bryce's wonderfulness. But here's a shot of Brian Head where we enjoyed such spectacular views yesterday.  Somehow it just doesn't look like a 11,300 foot plus summit. Our Forester was probably disappointed that we didn't choose the road to the top again.

Brian Head is the remnant of a collapsed volcanic cone

We continues driving through vast rolling meadows ringed by forests ablaze with yellow and orange Aspens.  Along the way we passed an area of recent (in geologic time) volcanic activity.  Ed turned off on a gravel side road up into the Dixie National Forest and we had a beautiful and adventuresome side trip until the road became too rutted to continue and Ed had to back down the hill to a turnaround spot.

Birch Spring Knoll Road

Volcanic rock behind Aspens

Farther along the way, we drove through Red Canyon...

We arrived at our accommodation for the next three nights a little before 3:00 to find a large complex of cabins, motel buildings and camping areas with not a car or a person in sight.  We walked into the store/office to find a young lady behind the desk on the phone telling a customer to call back later because "we are really busy right now."  We told her we had a reservation.  "Check in time is 5:00 and the maids don't have the rooms ready yet."  O.K. fine... We headed to the park...

It immediately became obvious that Bryce Canyon is a very popular park.  The visitor center parking lot was nearly full and visitors were lined up waiting to talk to the ranger.  We got a little advice about possible hikes from a ranger who seemed pretty bored with going over and over the same information every day with a new bunch of tourists.  We were informed that the shuttle bus ran until the end of September but now park access is by private car.  Since it was late in the day we decided to drive to the end of the road, stopping at the scenic overlooks.  The first two parking lots were full but farther on out the road the crowds diminished and the views were beautiful.

Can you spot our shadows?

At the end of the road, we found a fairly short trail that we could easily walk at this late hour of the day. After only a few minutes, we were struck by the wonderful silence around us, since we had left the parking lot and the noise of vehicles and people. For the first time since our arrival we felt like we were back in nature. At one overlook we noticed a park worker holding an antenna, trying to track some signal. We asked who/what he was tracking.  His target was a mama bear who he had  previously tagged with a radio collar.  Her radio needs updating and he is hoping to tree her, with the help of his tracking dogs, and tranquilize her.  "Tree her, but not too high, I hope" he said, because it isn't easy getting a tranquilized bear safely down out of a tree!  He concluded that she must be just over the next ridge. After spending a generous amount of time talking with us he went off to continue his search of mama.

When we returned to our accommodation, after 5:00, the bored young lady had been replaced by a very friendly gentleman who checked us into our cabin.  Wifi was very slow and the extra data we purchased from Verizon to create our own hot spot doesn't kick in until the 10th so we thought we would have a gap in our blog of at least a few days.  We are delighted to find fast wifi this morning.  We can put up some pictures after all.

Today we are planning to hike into the canyon to get up close and personal with some hoodoos. Hopefully we can do so without also getting up close and personal with a few busloads of noisy tourists.