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BRYCE CANYON + BABY

Part 2 in a series on exploring the American West with an 8 week old

By Tommy Nagle

June 21^st, 2019

ZION ➼ BRYCE

An 80 mile drive north east of Zion is the place where the hoodoos reign.

Tall, narrow stone spires litter the landscape like ancient totem poles, weathered into unknowable, remarkable, precarious forms.

The Paiute Indians believed the hoodoos were the Legend People whom the trickster 'Coyote' turned to stone. It is said that they called the hoodoos Anka-ku-was-a-wits, or "red painted faces".

As with many things Native American, the Paiute didn't get naming rights to the place with the hoodoos. Instead the name that stuck was that of a Mormon settler, Scottish by birth, who had moved to Utah in 1847 at the age of 17. Ebenezer Bryce. Thus...

Bryce Canyon

Bryce is midway between Zion National Park* and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, tucked toward the south west corner of Utah.

It looks like it should be hot. It looks like a bubbling, roiling cauldron of red rock. 'Bryce Canyon' even sounds like a hot sexy action movie hero. Bryce Canyon can take out an entire Colombian private army without suffering a scratch. Bryce Canyon has washboard abs despite never seeming to work out. Bryce Canyon to the rescue. Hell, even 'Utah' sounds like some kind of onomatopoeic exaltation after you accidentally burn yourself on the metal part of your car seat belt in the height of summer. (UK folks, this may not apply to you).

I seem to have digressed into some kind of odd homoerotic fantasy.

After spending two days around Bryce Canyon, we had moved 40 or so miles east, deep in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, far from a real paved road, in a place called The Devils Garden (yes, no apostrophe, thank you USGS) a natural playground sculpted over 170 million years by wind, ice and thermal erosion.

In the Devils Garden, we were soaking up the evening sun. We were warm.

*catch up on the previous photo story in this series here.

⇡ This didn't take 47 shots to get something vaguely flattering, honest ⇡

The reason I mention the warmth in both Zion and Escalante is because when we first arrived in Bryce Canyon, despite only being 50 miles away from Zion as the crow flies, we were cold.

Stepping out of the RV's cab after a hour or so driving, we were met with a mid-afternoon chill that signaled we had gone up in the world. Literally.

Zion elevation: 3,898 feet

Bryce elevation: 7,664 feet

That evening, we had had the foresight to prime the generator-powered heater that our RV was equipped with, in the event the temperature dropped too low. Which it rapidly did. Come the morning, outside we could see ice on the ground and our breath in the air. The heater kept us cosy and we were so glad of it.

The thought of tent camping had crossed our minds (extremely briefly) in the planning of this trip, but that felt a little bit like self-flagellation.

"We're going on a road trip with an eight-week old baby, let's not make this any harder than it has to be. We've saved up the money, this is literally a once-in-a-lifetime trip. We'll never do it, at least in these same circumstances, again."

Having to get up in the middle of the night to answer nature's call is inconvenient enough, but having to do it from a tent? In the freezing cold? With a baby right there?

No. Thank. You.

The heater and the tiny bathroom were a lifesaver. More on that in a later story.

Every night we'd place the shades up over the windows, fixing them with magnets to the exposed metal of the RV's doors, and every morning we'd peel them off, unsure of what the day ahead held.

This morning was especially beautiful.

A clear blue sky and a gentle breeze through the pines.

The park's well-manicured gravel paths that wend their way through sun and shade, toward rock formations vibrant with colour.

Rock formations that, like much of the American West, can make you feel...

...small...

...temporary...

...insignificant.

Textures that speak of punishing wind, of drought, of brief monsoon-like downpours, of baking sun.

Natural amphitheatres that place you in the centre.

Stone towers that regard you imperiously.

You are the act, you are the play, you are the performance, not them.

And among all this harsh terrain, there is life. Huge pine trees have risen up from crevices in the ground, reaching for the light, animals skitter around as you approach.

There are numerous hikes of varying difficulties; just head to the visitors centre, grab a trail map and choose what suits you.

Or, if you're feeling particularly inspired by the region (and are not massively allergic like yours truly), you can take a tour and unleash your inner cowperson by riding round Bryce Canyon astride a horse.

The things these rocks must have seen...

⩄

We came upon a stone arch where magazine cover shoots could/should be taken. Unfortunately Lucy didn't bring her ballgown.

Surely arm warmers instead are just as cool?

#ArmWarmersQuarterlyMagazineHereWeCome

Towards the end of the Navajo Loop trail, there is a section called 'Wall Street', so named because walking at the base of its vertical walls reminded someone of being surrounded by the skyscrapers in New York's Wall Street, the centre of the finance industry.

The way out of Wall Street is via a steep series of switchbacks, like walking out of a subway station up ten broken escalators.

After our exertions, we rounded out the day with a quick walk around the aptly named Sunset Point, where Lucy tried her best to get on the cover of FierceMama™ Magazine.

🌘

The next day we were up before the dawn, as I wanted to experience Bryce Canyon being lit by the morning sun.

The hoodoos stood stoically in the cold, flat light, waiting for the first rays to appear.

Which they did, slowly but surely...

...until...

BOOM

...the sun burst over the horizon and for a moment, the canyon walls lit up.

As I spent the morning taking panorama after panorama, Lucy, wearing a still sleeping baby, documented my hard work.

And before long, virtually all the hoodoos were illuminated...

...some even seemed to glow in the early morning light.

I must have taken nigh on 500 photos in the space of an hour that morning.

It's easy to see how people can return time after time to this fascinating place.

But our time at Bryce had to come to an end.

We had places to go, more rocks to see.

This time not National Park rocks, but National Monument rocks.

" When undertaking a road trip of the American West, the roadtripper must take numerous photographs of long, straight roads in order to encapsulate quite how vast, lonely and beautiful parts of this country are.

This is the unwritten law.

None shall see it but all will feel its call. "

- Me, 2019

Told you it was cold.

On the road to Escalante (is that a song? Probably should be), we stopped for lunch at Powell Point Vista, named after expedition leader John Wesley Powell, who in the 1800s mapped these lands you see below. Back in those days they were one of the last "blank spots on the map" of the continental United States.

This area used to be covered by a huge inland ocean, and the wave-like formations that remain are called "The Blues", 80 million year old deposits of shale. Deep in the hills of "The Blues" is one of the most well preserved and unbroken records of late Cretaceous life on the planet.