Bryce Canyon National Park

It's beautiful! But is it beautiful in the absolute sense, or is it the novelty of a landscape so different from our normal stomping ground that makes Bryce Canyon the national treasure it is? Of course, I can't really answer that - absolutely. Since it's a unique, or nearly unique  landscape (Cedar Breaks National Monument - about 35 miles west - is a somewhat smaller collection of concentrated hoodoos often described as "a mini Bryce Canyon"), I guess you'd have to ask someone whose normal stomping ground is Bryce Canyon. Oh, well. it's probably not important. . .

View looking south into the Bryce Amphitheater from the Rim Trail near Sunset Point. The concentration of fins, windows, and hoodoos is simply incredible, as is the number of tourists standing around with open mouths.

The park was a lot busier this day (Wednesday) than I remember from my 2008 visit (it was a few weeks earlier in the season that year). The pics start out from Sunset Point because I couldn't get near Sunrise Point for all the RVs. Stragglers and dawdlers helped that over the course of the afternoon as the traffic thinned out.

View looking down into the amphitheater from Inspiration Point.

Mid-afternoon is not the ideal time to be taking pictures in Bryce. It's such a long drive to get here, one really ought to shoot as close to sunrise and sunset as possible to take advantage of the Pink Cliffs and the color variations of the formations.

View looking NE over the amphitheater from the Bryce Point Overlook.

Lighting is so important here when shooting down into the canyons filled with fins and hoodoos, because of all reflected light. When the angle is right, the glow of the whole concentration of red and white sandstone pillars is simply magnificent.

View looking East from the Bryce Point Overlook.

I guess I could move to Utah so I'd be able to spend the hours watching the light change and shooting. You might suggest it would be less trouble to just plan better, with a little more slack in the schedule. For example, I could go to the motel (about 15 miles away) and take a nap, then come back to shoot the last couple of hours of daylight. Then, get up early and come back again to shoot a couple of hours in the early morning. That had crossed my mind. I'll tell you later.

I was leaning on one of the stone fence posts to steady the camera while shooting frames for a panorama of the long view. I'd seen the chipmunk on the ground, and I guess it's fair to say I was startled when she appeared out of nowhere in front of my camera. The f-stop was small, but not small enough for her to pop up in focus - more's the pity.

It seems like I saw some bison somewhere on the first day's drive to Cortez, I think back in west Texas. I saw lots of ravens in Canyonlands and a few in Arches and on the way to The View, but not much else in the way of critters. I know there's wildlife all over the place, but it's not showing itself. I've been using the 28-135mm zoom but I've got the 70-300mm zoom standing by in case the critters decide to show themselves. Perhaps later in the trip.

View looking North from Natural Bridge Overlook, about tangent to the face of the cliff. The Pansaugunt Plateau runs basically north and south and the eastern edge of the plateau overlooks Bryce Canyon. So, most of the vistas from the park's overlooks face east, rendering the backgrounds from picture to picture very similar. For a little variety, I love the two old dead trees and shot this for composition.

I'd planned to finish up here in Bryce early enough to get to the motel and shoot the Sevier River valley to the east of the motel, with the sunset (and some 1000' hills) to my back. The idea was to include the full moon which would be rising before sunset. The timing was good for such a plan. The only trouble was, I lay down for a quick rest before getting the tripod and other gear set up. I didn't have a chance. I woke shortly after midnight, thought for a minute about where the full moon might be, and went back to sleep. See, sunset then sunrise at Bryce wouldn't have worked either.

This shot's from Water Canyon, the Mossy Cave trail head, back on Utah 12. Looking up for a change at the fins and hoodoos makes a big difference.

Of course, getting to bed early meant I was bound to wake early as well. I thought about returning to Bryce for the sunrise, but decided I'd rather leave before dawn and burn up the 50 miles between the motel and Zion NP instead. Any delays in the schedule now would be non-starters.

There are more pictures from the day's run HERE in the Bryce Canyon album on Flickr.