Tripping About

By: Anne Jorgenson

Running the trails of Bryce Canyon, following the curves of the canyon, staring at the spires of the hoodoos and attempting to take in the serene beauty of the park is overwhelming and wondrous. Watching the scene fade as I’m jolted back to reality as the treadmill comes to a stop is a little less so.

After years of running in the sallow light of the gym, watching the images pass me on the screen of the treadmill, imagining myself in the setting, I finally got to visit Bryce Canyon National Park this past May and it was as beautiful as I’d hoped.

A mere half hour drive from Zion National Park in southern Utah, Bryce Canyon has been an established monument since June 7, 1923. At 35,835 acres, the park includes an array of amphitheaters and unique geological formations known as ‘hoodoos’ – rock spires reaching for the sky shaped from erosion over the years.

The thing that excited me the most about Bryce Canyon is the star visibility. With the dry climate, high elevation of 7,664 feet and distance from city light pollution, Bryce Canyon is one of the few places in the world where you can see up to 7500 stars on a clear night.

I’m no astrologist, but there’s something about space that I’ve always found enrapturing, the scattered light of the universe beyond comforting in a humbling way. With Bryce’s visibility, it’s no surprise that the park offers an array of astronomy and night sky programs, including star walks with park rangers and full moon hikes down into the canyon.

Fate can be a cruel mistress, and of course the night we were there, the sky was cloudy. Despite that fact, the stars we could see through the smattering of clouds were beautiful, and the clouds added a seemingly whimsical air to the viewing.

That whimsical air was also frigid as it blew across the canyon. At night, Utah certainly didn’t stick close to the 80°F weather it delivered during the day, and dropped to about 40°F while we were out there, a pretty average change during those seasons, according to previous data. Regardless of our ill equipped summer camping gear, the Sunset Campground was beautiful, clean and offered the convenience of a centralized communal bathhouse with running water, which my city-reared self will freely admit was a lovely feature.

Ultimately, I loved Bryce. I’m not sure it lived entirely up to my idolized expectations, but with over 23 miles of hiking, campsites, unique and picturesque landscapes and a quaint nature not often seen around national parks, I absolutely hope to go back in the future to spend more time exploring.