2020 Winter Camping Trip Day12

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day12, 2020/12/7

We arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park. It was my first time visiting Bryce. Zion, which is not far from Bryce, gets so much attention and that makes Bryce less famous, but I found that Bryce is really beautiful as well.  

Rainbow Point

This day we hike the Rainbow Point to Riggs Spring Loop trail (10 miles, +/- 2000 feet). Rainbow point is one of the viewpoints that can be accessed from scenic drive. It is the highest altitude at 9115 feet, among the viewpoints. From there we went down to the forest. You can get an idea from the left picture. Different altitude offers opportunities to see quite variety of scenery. First we saw hoodoos from the top. After we descended we looked up hoodoos. It is a different impression looking down or up the hoodoos. 

When I went down into the forest, I smelled the forest I used to smell. Western forest smell! It is mixed with trees and dry dirt. I had forgotten the Western forest smell. It is very different smell from New England forest. 

Looking up hoodoos

In Bryce, there are some designated backcounty campsites. Along this loop there are 3 campsites. Yovimpa Pass site had a nice views (for my future note). It would be interesting to go backpacking in Bryce someday. I heard that popular backpacking in Bryce is going through Under-the Rim Trail, around 30 miles, point to point and catch a shuttle to back to the start point. Off-season in winter the shuttle is not running, but summer it would be nice. On this day during 10 mile hike we didn't see anybody again! Wow. All ours. Lucky!

Natural Bridge

After the hike we drove back to the park main area. (The rainbow point is most west of the park and the main park area is Eastern side). On the way to go back to East side, we stopped by each scenic point. My favorite stop among them is Natural Bridge. The left picture is the one. Isn't it cool?! At least a couple of hundred years needed to the inside rock portion is fallen off. Also some time later the whole bridge would fall. Grateful to be able to see this bridge. 

I was thinking, "Oh do I deserve hiking such amazing places every day? This is so good, and I am very happy, and too good!"

Then we went back to the campsite nearby. 

Here I have to add a very important incident. Near the Bryce there are some hotels and cottages for tourists: basically a small touristy town. There is only one fast-food store, though. That is Subway. First night we came to the Bryce area we stopped by Subway to take out (only take-out available due to COVID). When we parked a car, we noticed 2 cats in front of us, as photographed. One was tabby, the other was black and white. I shouted, "cats!" and went outside. The cats were excited about humans and came, but immediately they lost interests, because we didn't have food for them. They are absolutely NOT interested in being pet. They are interested in ONLY food. We didn't have any meat or fish at that time, so we didn't feed them. It was not clear if they were Subway's owner's cat or feral cats. The other day we again came back to Subway the same two cats were there, AND two more cats in the parking lot. It seemed that there were many feral cats there. Cats are always one of highlights of my trip, so I had to write this!