Despite a bit of a delay, this is the third installment of photos from our trip out west! Following up on prior posts: (1) The American West, and (2) How to Light an Arch, here are some shots from Bryce Canyon National Park. Bryce is a relatively small park, you can drive down and back in an afternoon, and most of the big sight-seeing destinations are a short walk from the parking lot. What Bryce (at more than 8000 feet altitude) offers though, is a respite from the heat of Arches and the desert, and (because of the altitude and remote location) some of the most beautiful night skies around. So awesome, in fact, that they have a yearly astronomy festival and our visit coincided with this year’s event! I’d highly recommend visiting during the festival if you get the chance!
For starters, here’s a mug shot 🙂
The next few frames are from sunset at Paria View. As the sun went down, so did the temperatures!
Note the relative size of the pine trees and the cliff face. Those are big trees, next to a MUCH bigger cliff…
One of the first late-night expeditions of the trip, along with an “after” pic. Bryce has this dust that just gets everywhere, in cameras, bags, clothes. I mean – everywhere.
Pre-dawn, and sunrise at (where else) Sunrise Point!
A morning drive down to the southern-most point in the park…
One really nice day hike is the Navajo loop trail, which you can do in part of an afternoon. The highlight is walking through “Wall Street” – a slot canyon through the Hoodoos, with tall pines growing sporadically – stretching up toward the scarce sunlight. There is quite a bit of elevation change but the scenery is more than worth it!
Some behind-the-scene shots from David!
Switchbacking down into “Wall Street”…
Night sky photos from a top-secret location (near the top of the Navajo Loop Trail…)
Finally, a 9-shot vertical panorama of the entire visible Milky Way galaxy. The top of the image below was actually shot facing behind me (because I couldn’t bend over backward that far) and stitched together! Click on this one for a larger view, these blog post sizes don’t do the Milky Way justice… Maybe all spiral galaxies are this beautiful from within, but I think we ended up with a good one 🙂
Hope you enjoyed them! Has anyone else been to Bryce? Any good tips for a return visit?
– BH
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