Matsimitsu

Robert Beekman

7/11/2011

Day eight

Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park

I'll be honest, the details are a bit hazy after all these years. I didn't to a great job of journaling this trip when I made it and due to camera time settings and timezones it's tricky to determine what was visited on which day.

I think it was day eight when we visited Bryce Canyon, but it could also have been the second park on the seventh day ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The weather wasn't super great, with lots of cloud and rain every now and then. Luckily we stuck to our ways and never wandered far from the viewpoints.

Road leading up to Bryce Canyon, stuck behind a CruiseAmerica camper

Bryce Canyon National Park

As before, the main parks almost everyone on a east-west roadtrip visits are Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park and Canyonlands National Park.

Today was the day of Bryce Canyon National Park. It's is such a weird place. You drive through a flat valley for what seems ages and there's just no way that this valley can hide what eventually are the views of the canyon.

But it does, and when you finally get there, the views are amazing!

Just a heads up, I just discovered you could take Panorama photos by just bursting a ton of photos and let Photoshop figure it out.

I wish I hadn't learned that, because most photos at the viewpoint now consist of tons of vertical photo bursts with no straight horizon whatsoever. So enjoy the letterbox Panorama photos :P.

Well I did try to frame the photo's ;)

Framing a view of Bryce Canyon National Park

The main route through the park takes you along the rim and every couple of hundred meters there's a new viewpoint with a completely different view of the valley.

scenic view of Bryce Canyon National Park

Valley view in Bryce Canyon National Park

View of rock arch in Bryce Canyon National Park

Ah, right we also saw some deer near the road on our way back!

Zion National Park

After Bryce Canyon we still had some daylight to spare so we headed to Zion National Park.

With time limited we managed to make our way to the bottom of the canyon and walk around on the canyon floor, before taking the bus back to the park entrance.

In our hotel/inn that evening we were watching TV and suddenly there was this horrendous noise, wich turned out to be the Emergency Alert sytem notifying us of flood warnings. Pretty neat to have experienced that without some bigger disaster.