Yesterday we were camped at Tropic, Utah. Tropic is located about 12 miles southeast of Bryce and is a place that offers a good motel for those that need one while visiting the canyon. For us, it was a close campground at a decent price for the night. We pulled out of Tropic about 9:30 this morning taking highway 12.
Yesterday we were camped at Tropic, Utah. Tropic is located about 12 miles southeast of Bryce and is a place that offers a good motel for those that need one while visiting the canyon. For us, it was a close campground at a decent price for the night. We pulled out of Tropic about 9:30 this morning taking highway 12. The setting was unbelievable, and the structure of the coffee house, absolutely perfect. This coffee house is located no closer than 15 miles from any other commercial establishment, and it is located at the edge of one outstanding canyon wall. The hike into the falls was about 3 miles and follows a beautifully clear stream. Unfortunately, they don’t have room for us to get in because of our size. So the only option we had was to continue on. Hwy 12 continued to “surprise” us. The views were outstanding and the road is still extremely narrow. As we climbed at 14 degrees and then dropped at 8 degrees, only to find ourselves at the top of a ridge that was so narrow that I was hoping not to have any on-coming traffic. This was a “ridge”… both sides of the roadway plunged several hundred feet to the canyons below. Continuing another 8 miles further down the road from Calf Creek, we found a small campsite that we could stay over-night at. It happens to be at Boulder, Utah and at a “Mini-Mart” that has 4 electric and water hookups right next to the store. After unhooking the “toad”, we drove back to Calf Creek to take that hike to the falls, and are we happy we did as they are as wonderful and advertized.
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_ 3 May ‘08 Saturday Unfortunately we didn’t get our hike in yesterday. When we arrived back at the coach from Bryce on Thursday, we found that our “house batteries” had apparently gone bad (at least that’s what we think had happened). Anyway, we ended up having to go back to Cedar City, some 120 miles away, to try and find replacements. After stops at NAPA and CarQuest, we found that we were coming up short. Then one of the guys at CarQuest gave us a name of a company that might be able to help…Battery Exchange. A couple of hours later, we were able to have our lunch, pick up our new batteries and head on back to get them installed. It’s been a full day, a total of 225 miles round trip, and a receipt for 4 new batteries. Well today we were able to start our hike at Bryce. Last night we moved the coach a little closer to the park and that gave us the opportunity to get an early start. Bryce Canyon has always been a special place. _The original inhabitants, the Paiutes, believed that the rock figures were people turned to stone by angry gods…well we see them a little differently now, but it does seem that there still is a little magic there. _Our hike took us down into the midst of these delicately colored spires, and let me tell you, you can let your imagination run away with you with all the different figures that these spires make up. We even saw the one that they call “Queen Victoria”. _It really does look just like all the pictures I’ve seen of her over the years. We were able to see the famous “Hoodoo’s” as well, and then hike down into the middle of all the spires. The tougher part is the hike back up the “switch-backs” to the top of the cliffs. _Overall our hike took us just over 2 ½ hours, and it was, “The Most Beautiful Canyon” in the world. By the way, Ebenezer Bryce, whose cattle grazed in the mazelike twists of the canyons, once said, “a hell of a place to lose a cow..”. I’ll bet it was… 1 May ‘08 Thursday We’ve got to get our tire repaired this morning, but the question is where??? Kodachrome State Park is out in the middle of “no-where”, so we’ve got some exploring to do. After asking the camp host, ranger, and a stranger, I got the idea that we would have to drive up to the entrance of Bryce Canyon. Up there they have a “garage” that could do the job for us, so Bryce Canyon, here we come. $15 and 45 minutes later and we were the grand tour of Bryce Canyons Rim. After a stop at the “Information Center”, we found out that Bryce “Canyon” is 18 miles long and the best way of seeing as much as you can is to drive down the 18 miles to see the first “over-look” and then as you are returning to the main gate, you will have 9 more stops to enjoy. The only problem was, on the 6th stop, we found out that our newly repaired flat tire had decided to go flat again… OK, let’s not go and dig out the jack and remove the spare tire cover again, let’s just try out the air pump. After all, we’re only 3 miles away from the garage this time. Tire pumped up again, back to the garage, more time with them, and we’re on the way again. Because of the time, we decided not to take a major hike in the canyon but there is one that we will make. It’s located just outside of the park, a hike of about a mile return, and takes in a small waterfall and a snow cave. It was OK but I probably wouldn’t stop again… Tomorrow we’ll take a hike into Bryce Canyon that has been billed as “The Most Beautiful Hike In The World”. |
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