Fairytale Bryce Canyon National Park

I thought that it would be difficult to roll out from under clean, white bed sheets and heave my body out of a comfortable, huge bed, but waking up in a Vegas hotel proves not to be too difficult.  In fact, this isn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a while, but it is the most expensive sleep I have on this holiday.

During the night I frequently woke up, feeling strange to be in a room with a ceiling; also, the air was all wrong, an air conditioned room with a window that didn’t open.

I’m up early, and though it is nice to have a shower, I am eager to get out of the city and leave the cleanliness and ‘comfort’ behind.

It’s a 4 hour drive back up north to Utah, and the hours zoom, or perhaps I am speeding a bit, eager to get back to Utah.  Soon, I am back in a familiar landscape, because after the 3 weeks I’ve just spent here, I feel like Utah is familiar territory.  

There are a lot of people in and around Bryce Canyon National Park, and a shuttle is running from the town into the park; I wonder if I’m too late to snatch a park campground, but as I drive through, there are a few empty sites.  It’s gone afternoon by the time camp’s set up and I’m fed, and in the heat, there’s but one thing to do – drive the scenic route with the windows wide open and stop in at all the scenic views and short hikes.

Luckily, today’s the breeziest it’s been in Utah thus far.  There’s a welcome chill in the breeze, and I have to, even though the sun is still out, wear a light jumper to keep my tanned, leathery skin from forming goosebumps.  

I keep on writing this, I guess, but it’s true – the landscape changes, again, and only within a few kilometers.  Bryce Canyon is covered by hoodoos, layered in a variety of beige, brown, off-white and peach colour. It looks as if someone has taken some sugar icing, added food colouring to it, and then dripped sugar spires into the ground…or a giant, perhaps, making sand castles out of dripping, wet sand.  My words can’t do it justice here…

From the road, I’m always looking down into the hoodoos, thousands of them gleaming as the sun begins to dip down, and the clouds begin to roll in, because here, too, I get clouds and the shade they afford.  I take my time, driving from point to point, getting out and exploring as much as possible, climbing where I can, gasping at the scenes along with other visitors, exchanging glances about the seemingly surreal place we happen to find each other in.  Utah, you continue to impress.

In the morning I pack, and head out to walk.  I read about the famous Navajo Loop Trail and suspect that it will be the busiest one, so I opt for the “Fairytale Loop Trail.”  Yes, I am mostly drawn to the name, and as soon as the walk starts, I know the trail is aptly named. It begins at the top of the mesa, slowly winding down into the valley of hoodoos, weaving in and out, up and down and around them.  I don’t remember making a conscious decision to walk anti-clockwise, but in doing so, I’ve missed the other morning traffic that started clockwise, and so it is a while before I see anyone else on the trail, and when I do, we wave hello and walk away in opposite directions.  My head doesn’t stop moving – the hoodoos take all kinds of shapes, and the sun illuminates different parts as it rises. It’s as if the hoodoos themselves are moving, along with me, and a lovely slow dance.

The sky is amazing here too, complimenting the hoodoos, a sort of reflection of the ground; from the group rise these sandstone, seemingly delicate spires, and in the sky, clouds take on various elongated spiral shapes.  

It is easy to take a good photo here – anywhere you point the camera, it is happy to shoot and commit the scene to memory.  

The most impressive, here, are the trees and their roots.  At night, they have to, they must, be moving around chirps the childish voice in my head, streaming through all the children’s stories I remember about talking and moving trees – just look at those roots, ready to get up and go.  I stand and look at those roots for a while – if nature isn’t going to inspire you to persevere, fight against the odds or adapt, nothing will.  Look at these trees: they are incredible.

At the end of my walk, as I’m changing into my sandals by my car, a family of 5 pass by – we passed each other a few hours back and exchanged cheerful hellos, somewhere else on the trail – they are almost finished the Fairytale Loop, but they’ve started at another point and have about another 45 min until they reach their finish line.  They enquire about water stations, but since there are no fountains at the car park here, I share with them the water that has been keeping chill in the trunk. Ah, the beauty of being outdoors – everyone is friendly; everyone shares what they have, including, best of all, stories, smiles and water – add a bit of food and there you have it, a good life.