Bryce National Park – July 15-17

We arrived in Panguitch about mid-afternoon and checked into our modest Purple Sage motel.  Panguitch means big fish in the Paiute language.  Today it has strong overtones of Mormonism as did our motel but it is clean.  Before we started this road trip I could not get reservations at the lodge in the park or at the motels just outside the park so this was our fallback.  We were able to get reservations at the last minute Thursday for the historic Bryce Canyon Lodge, located inside the park, for Saturday night.

Around 5:00 pm we drove to Bryce National Park for a quick look as the sunset so what would be more appropriate than to drive to Sunset Point.  The views were really great – better than all the photos we have seen of the hoodoos.  The hoodoos are the big draw in the park and what a scene they make.  Rita and I made up stories of how they were carved out by Egyptians or Nabateans.  We could make out Sphinxes, terracotta soldiers, crumbling statues, Nabatean tombs, etc.  Our imaginations ran amuck.  And as one old rancher in the area was heard to say, “It’s a hell of a place to lose a cow”.  We visited the Bryce and Paria overlooks before driving back to Panguitch and our beds.

Saturday morning we checked out of the Purple Sage motel in Panguitch and headed for Bryce National Park stopping for breakfast on the way.  Once more we had cloudless skies and cool temperatures with the smell of pine trees in the air.  We started by stopping at Bryce Point which impressed us the most yesterday.  With the mid-morning sunlight it took on a different color – one of the features of Bryce National Park is that the hoodoos and landscape look quite different throughout the day.

Next we drove to the end of the park road to the Rainbow Point lookout.  The rest of the day was spent driving the 18 mile road back and stopping at each lookout point to photograph all the different scenery.  We stopped at Black Birch Canyon, Ponderosa Canyon, Agua Canyon, Farview Point, and Swamp Canyon lookouts.  Then we drove to Inspiration Point and hiked to the upper Inspiration Point lookout.  All of these lookouts were located above 8,000 feet.  Finally we drove to Fairyland Point lookout and then to the General Store where we relaxed on the porch with local microbrewery beers.  

It was now mid-afternoon and so we stopped at the Bryce Canyon Lodge and checked into our room.

The lodges at Zion, Grand Canyon North Rim, and Bryce national parks were built in the early 1900s by Union Pacific Railroad and the three parks were part of the Circle Tour made by tourists in the early days of American tourism.  The lodges at Zion and North Rim had burned down and were rebuilt in the 1920s.  The Bryce Canyon Lodge is still the original lodge, however it has been refurbished over the years.  

After a rest we walked to Sunrise Point overlook, the only remaining overlook we had not visited yet.  After dinner outside we came back to our room and relaxed on the back porch – no TV, no cell phone reception and no WiFi connections.  How peaceful!