We spent Saturday at Big Rock Candy Mountain. When we saw it on the map and it was on the way to Bryce we decided to stop and spend the night. The song of the same name was sung back in the depression years about hobo's in search of a magical place were cigarettes grew on trees, the bull dogs had rubber teeth and there was a lemonade spring. (google it if you have not heard it). The story about the mountain is when the song came out, some people in the area thought their mountain looked like a Big Rock Candy Mountain. So they stuck a sign up identifying it as such and it stuck. Whomever names mountains, gave it the name. It is a mountain of mostly limestone, and through the ages the rocks have turned colors giving it a distinctive look. Very different than the mountains that sit right next to it.
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We arrived at Bryce Canyon Sunday the 26th around noon. It was about 85 degrees and Deane found a 3.5 hour tour that runs twice a day, and the last one was at 1pm. So we did the 'senior' thing, called and got reservations. This is a bus tour which takes you the entire length of the park, stopping at many of the overlooks. You get good information about the park from the driver and because the bus was air conditioned it was a good way to spend the late afternoon. The views we saw were to say the least, spectacular. But nothing that would compare with what we saw Monday on our own.
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Sunday night we did the tourist thing for dinner and headed to Ebenezer's Barn and Grill for a dinner and a western show. It was a tourist thing.....not bad, entertaining, but definitely not Vegas!
You know we love to hike, not the hard challenging trails, but we enjoy being able to get out and into the wild and see things up close, things you never see from the view points. Being that we are not 'seasoned' hikers, we sometimes fail to take things with us, or we go at the wrong time. Well, Monday we got all of the right stuff in the back packs, but because we both are not early risers, we started our hike around noon. The temps here, even at 8000+ ft., are over 80 degrees.
We took an incredible 3+ mile hike that took us from the rim, down about 600 ft., through some of the most incredible vistas and views I have ever experienced. The path is a good one, wide enough for people coming the other direction to pass you without anyone having to hug the ledge. Once we were down at the bottom of the canyon, we then had to start our way up..... back up 600 feet. Going down, we first went through the Navajo trail that took us through a very narrow canyon to Wall Street, an area where Douglas Fir trees line the walls of the canyon and the hoodoo's stand guard. Next on the trail was the Queens Garden, a lovely green area of conifers, manzanita bushes, Oregon grapes, and a wonderful hoodoo that looks like a Queen sitting on her chair, with her flowing robes and crown on her head. Around her, if you used your imagination, you could see hoodoo's appearing like her sentry's, and another which could have been her castle.
The hoodoo's are amazing.... They are pillars of rock, usually of fantastic shapes left by erosion. Geologists say 10 million years ago forces within the earth created and then moved the massive blocks known as the Table Cliffs and Pausaugunt plateaus. Ancient rivers carved the tops and exposed the edges of the blocks removing some of the layers and sculpting formations in others.
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This National park is something everyone should see. We have been amazed at how many people are here and where they are from. We have seen license plates from Massachusetts and Florida to Washington and California. At the dinner at Ebenezer's, were visitors from Wales, England, Germany, and Australia.
Actually, I think all of our National parks are a treasure and should be visited by all of us. Amazing how many people from other countries come to visit them.