Toward the far horizons.
Haha. Thought we'd be leaving Bryce by now? Not so fast, bucko. There are still a few more things to see.

One thing that we didn't really appreciate at the time was that these were the furthest-distant horizons we would see on the whole of the trip. Bryce is at fairly high altitude – about 7500 to 9000 feet – and is on the southeasternmost corner of the Paunsaugunt Plateau, at the top of a vast series of cliffs and plateaus known as the Grand Staircase. Looking to the southeast, the land drops away layer by layer, and on a good day you can see as far as the Kaibab Plateau, on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, about 70 miles away. In the image below, the Pink Cliffs are in the foreground, and the Gray Cliffs in the middle distance; the White Cliffs, Vermillion Cliffs, and Chocolate Cliffs are too far to be seen, and I don't think the air is clear enough to see the Kaibab.

Turning northeast, from Bryce you can see the Aquarius Plateau, the highest of all the many plateaus that merge together to make up the Colorado Plateau. A lot of it is over 11,000 feet in elevation. In fact, Wikipedia currently claims that the Aquarius is the highest plateau in North America, but I'm not sure how much credence I feel like giving that at the moment.

During the night, M. and I were awakened by the gentle but persistent tap-tap-tapping of rain drizzling down upon our tent. It didn't rain hard, but it didn't really stop raining, either, putting big holes in my plans to get beautiful sunrise images. We tried to wait out the rain with a nice breakfast at the lodge, but no luck. Finally, we decided we weren't going to just give up, so we drove down to Yovimpa point – the highest, southernmost point in the park – and hiked out to the edge of the plateau.

A short trail winds around neat the cliff edge, passing some bristlecone pines. We didn't get any pictures, because the rain was coming down pretty persistently by then. Even in southern Utah, being rained on at 9000 feet is a cold experience.

Looking off towards Zion, it was pretty clear the weather was no better down there (the top of Zion Canyon is on the left horizon of this image).

So we thought about how crowded Zion probably was, and how long it would take us to drive there, and the rain, and decided to cross it off the itinerary. I regretted it, because I'd been there before, decades ago, and I know how spectacular it is, and I wanted the offspring to experience it – but wet and shivering – no, I didn't pack a raincoat – she was rapidly reaching the limits of her enthusiasm for the great outdoors, and Zion would probably be lost on her now anyways.

So, in a fog of caffeine deprivation, we headed north, and back down to the desert.

Next: we're goin' to the Swell.

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Posted by David Fleck at 12 September 2006 10:04 PM