This is going to be a short and sweet blog post – because, frankly, we didn’t spend a lot of time in Bryce Canyon. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth taking at least a couple of days to explore – I’m sure it absolutely is!
As mentioned in my last blog post, we didn’t make the trip over to Bryce Canyon until the evening of our last day spent in Zion National Park, after photographing sunset and grabbing dinner. Because of that, we hit the highway in the dark, and arrived at Bryce Canyon in the dark, completely unaware of the beauty that was all around us that we would discover the next day.
After dodging many desert deer on the hour-and-a-half drive, we struggled in the dark to find an empty place to camp. There are two campgrounds at Bryce Canyon National Park – North Campground, and Sunset Campground. Sunset Campground is closed from mid-October through mid-April, so by process of elimination we chose the North Campground.
It was cold at Bryce Canyon. Really cold. Probably about -6 C when we arrived after 10 pm. Bryce Canyon is much higher in elevation than Zion, by about an additional 1,000 feet. Therefore, the weather in Bryce can be drastically different than in Zion. Make sure to bring some warm clothes if you’re stopping over here in the winter!
We settled into our makeshift “camper truck” for a super quick sleep before waking up to photograph sunrise and continue on our Utah road trip journey.
Bryce Canyon is not actually a canyon, but a collection of giant amphitheatres along the Eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. You’re probably familiar with hoodoos – well, Bryce Canyon, is full of these, and they are created by frost weathering and steam erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks! Pretty cool right? They’re red, orange, pink and white in color, and I found them absolutely fascinating, albeit slightly eerie.
There are many places to watch sunrise at Bryce Canyon. We chose Bryce Point, a short drive from our campground.
Words can’t describe the views, so this blog post is now going to turn into a photo post….
Keep an eye out for my next blog post where I’ll chat about Arches National Park and show my photos of the jaw-dropping scenery! Better yet, sign up for my mailing list, to be notified by email when a new blog post goes live!
2 thoughts on “Bryce Canyon National Park”
Hi Jenn-
Awesome post!
My boyfriend and I are going to Zion and Bryce. We are leaving Thursday, March 9th. For Bryce, would you suggest a hiking boot (warmer/protect from snow) v.s. a regular hiking shoe? I would love to know your thoughts- we are so excited. We just want to be prepared as possible.
Hey Heather! I would check the conditions for sure for Bryce – there was some snow when we were there last year in March, so definitely a boot that is good for winter would be ideal. It will likely get chilly up there right now as it is at a higher elevation. We brought microspikes but didn’t need them; however, as my post mentioned we were only at Bryce for a short amount of time 🙂 Have a blast and let me know what you think of it!