Bryce Canyon National Park

Well, Bryce Canyon is a tourist spot.  It costs $30 to get in and you prowl for parking in the hot day at the viewpoint parkinglots, for the privilege of standing in a crowd and aiming your camera at the same thing everyone else is. 

And it’s worth it.

The National Park consists of a single 18-mile road that skirts the edge of the canyon, on the left as you drive out (and up—the final stop is at 9115 feet altitude).  There are regular gawking turnouts as you go, or, when the road is farther back from the rim, short side roads to major view stations each with their own name, parkinglot, and rugged promenade abreast the spectacle. 

I started with a hike.  After a short wait I nabbed a parkingspot at the Swamp Canyon trailhead and set out on a loop trail that took me at once away from the crowds and down into the quiet of the strange landscape.  My feet chuffed through gentle, dry pine woods, but studded here and there with what seemed to be wreckage pieces from a giant alien starship made of pink stone.

And, every time you looked outward, the pines seemed to be framing an invisible portal to a land of Maxfield Parrish fantasy.

Alas, I was either quite out of shape or had neglected the altitude, or both, for the two-hour hike quite did me in.  It was the heat of the day, and on the loop back up I wasted a lot of photos on uninteresting things just to rest for a moment in a scant pine shade and let my racing heart slow down.  But it was much-needed exercise for my newly recumbent road-trip body.  I’m still figuring out how and when to put some sort of workouts into this life.  Hikes are a good start.

Back in the crowds I collected my Miata and revved weakly on up to the end of the road (the Miata was feeling the altitude too).  My plan was to visit the view turnouts on the way down, when they’d be both on my right and enlivened with later light.  So I wound up relaxing for over an hour at the end stop, Rainbow Point, where the whole canyon is spread out below and where they have an open lodge with seating in the shade.

It was interesting to “sit” with a view for a while.  How long does one spend at a scenic viewpoint?  There seems to be a fixed social limit, not unlike the time one stands before a painting in a museum, after which one is meant to go.  Staying on longer, I became more aware of the tourists: the multiple languages, the laughter, the clustering before selfie sticks, the dissatisfied commentary (overheard: “What is that chipmunk DOING up here?  He’s out of his mind!”)  A small group of tiny fast birds with triangular delta wings sported over the stony abyss and back into the trees, over and over.  Are we so different? 

The drive down offered new perspectives on the stone kingdom, until I too reached my mysterious limit and didn’t need to see it any more.  Perhaps because, unbeknownst to me, I had gotten a sunburn on my hike.  Drinking lots of water, I drove South, hoping to get to the doorstep of the next one, Zion National Park.  Fatigue settled in, and I made the poorest choice of my trip so far: I checked into a full-fledged hotel instead of a campground.  I was in search of a shower and an Internet connection, but both could have been had for far less money than I spent at the Best Western Lodge in Mount Carmel Junction.  Argh--there goes my budget...

P.S. Internet connections have been surprisingly hard to come by out here in the Utah canyonlands.  My idea was to stay at campgrounds or hostels, then pop into a Starbucks mid-day for my daily blog-loading, email-checking, etc.  But there are no Starbucks around here!  What kind of place is this, anyway?  An early foretaste of South America...?