Cedar Breaks National Monument — My World Tuesday

My memory does not tell me why I got side-tracked last summer with presenting my summer vacation, but I did. Now is the time to finish it. (And who is going to complain about some warmer-weather pictures?)

I left you at Red Canyon, outside of Bryce Canyon. From there we went to Cedar Breaks National Monument.

We go to this place every single summer. I have a convention every summer in Salt Lake City which is why we take these family vacations to western National Parks. The very first year we passed through Cedar Breaks, and we always return because it is so beautiful. The wildflower meadows are a place that we must get a picture of our kids each year. The times of year we have gone have varied which means the flowers have varied at lot when we have been there. But it is always a wonderful sight, and perfect for pictures of little girls.

(I must warn you that friends and a fellow blogger have been there as well and have not had the spectacular weather we seem to be blessed with. The elevation is over 10,000 feet, so weather can be unpredictable, but it has always been spectacular for us. There is a big ski resort in the area for winter visits, but leaving toward Salt Lake would scare me to death if the roads were bad.)

This is the big attraction--the "breaks." It reminds me a lot of Bryce Canyon, but not so many hoodoos. This is looking right into the area.

This is looking left in the same area.

Thankfully they had a quick Junior Ranger program here because we are always passing through. The Junior Ranger program is really a good one. It not only teaches children about the area and nature, but about being responsible with nature.

A week earlier or later and one would see completely different colors in a field like this.

I am sure these are not uncommon, but Cedar Breaks is one of the few places I have personally seen white thistle.

The wildflowers alone would be reason enough to detour here every year, but the "breaks" in the background make it absolutely spectacular. This is one of my favorite places I have ever been.

My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!

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Red Canyon–SkyWatch Friday

This is a little area we saw on the way into and out of Bryce Canyon–not far from there at all. We went on a short hike here looking for a letterbox. I had not even gone through all these pictures yet, and just looking at them, the colors kind of shock me. You can see why it’s called Red Canyon.

To see LOTS more terrific sky pictures or to find out how to participate in this meme, head to the SkyWatch blog.

Note to my regular readers:

I have a lot going on in my life right now. I will tell you about it when I have a chance, but that probably will not be for a while. So no posting other than the memes I help with, and little visiting. I DID get my taxes finished, then I had to take care of the annual Flexplan stuff, but that is finished, too. Our dog had a run-in with a skunk yesterday morning (this in a place I have never seen a skunk nor smelled more than two times in the 7 years I have lived here), so that has added to the things to take care of. (I am sure some of the smell will just have to go away of its own accord; there seems to be nothing we can do to remove every trace from the house. Actually, when we find the offending item that has a propensity to absorb amazing amounts of odor or that the dog touched, we can remedy it. But it seems we have not been able to find everything.)  Have a fantastic weekend!

 

The Last of Bryce Canyon–My World Tuesday

In my last post I said that it would be my last SkyWatch post from Bryce Canyon National Park, but many of  you thought it was the last post about Bryce. My apologies for that. I have to do one more. I could do ten more, but one is necessary because I have not yet shown you my favorite overlook.

When visiting Bryce Canyon, one can go to an overlook for every major amphitheater and see all of it in just a few hours. However, we spent 2-1/2 days there and did not have enough time to do all we wanted. The overlooks only made us want to see more. One day we will return and go backpacking in the bottom. (If you know anything about me and camping, you would KNOW it is an incredible place for me to even consider such a thing.)

Paria View--looking left (click photo to enlarge)

My favorite overlook was Paria View. I cannot tell you why it was, but something there just moved me more than all the other places. (I honestly loved them all, and some close seconds were the Upper Inspiration Point and  Bryce Point.)

Paria View--looking right (click photo to enlarge)

What amazed me at this place is that there were chipmunks on the ledges running around like it was nothing. Of course it was nothing to them, but I wonder if they ever mis-estimate a jump or something slides and they fall. (My children wondered this as well, and I emphatically told them OF COURSE THAT NEVER HAPPENS!) If they fell, there would be nothing below until the canyon floor hundreds of feet down. It made my stomach a bit queasy watching them.

Since in the last post so many of you said that sunset was a terrific way to say “Good-bye” to Bryce (and it was; it was our last night there), I decided to include a close-up of the same sunset at the end of this post, the real “Good-bye.” (For now at least.)

click photo to enlarge

My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!

 

It Doesn’t Get Much Bluer Than This–SkyWatch Friday

This is part of Bryce Canyon National Park. It is near “Mossy Cave.” I got no pictures of that because the size and angle made it impossible for me to get anything reasonable in the confines of my lens. But the short hike was nice, and I will show you more for the next My World Tuesday.

click photos to enlarge

To see LOTS more terrific sky pictures or to find out how to participate in this meme, head to the SkyWatch blog.

 

“The World’s Greatest 3-Mile Hike” — My World Tuesday

August 2 was our first full day at Bryce Canyon National Park. We awoke to a temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit. That was reason enough to be there in August!

That morning we did “The World’s Greatest 3-Mile Hike” which is the combination of two shorter trails. One trail is the “Queen’s Garden Trail” and the other is “Navajo Loop.” We could not do longer hikes on this trip because of my ankle problems and because 4 miles is about the limit of our 5-year-old.

Here are the pictures. Most will enlarge if clicked.

This is near the beginning of our hike that started at Sunrise Point.

A view of the Bryce Amphitheater between two hoodoos.

The redness comes from iron.

The family on the trail.

This is why it is the "Queen's Garden Trail." The hoodoo formation on the left is said to look like a profile of Queen Victoria on her throne. (I'm not sure why it could not be any queen.) My daughters thought the formation just to the right of it, a little lower, looked like the head of a dragon. (This impressed them more than the queen.)

This was the first experience my daughters had with cairns. They loved it, and the oldest one got into putting a stone on any one she could find--usually doing something difficult to balance. These cairns were in the bottom of the canyon.

The trail in the bottom was all-but-deserted, and quite different scenery than the top.

The trees in the bottom had some terrific shapes for framing the stone parts of the canyon.

This little area enchanted me. I loved the way the hoodoos and trees, similarly-shaped, were all together in a garden of sorts.

I think this is "Wall Street." So named because not much sky could be seen through this part of the hike.

This is near the top of the path out. This is QUITE a climb. Thankfully the scenery is spectacular, so it's fine to stop frequently to take pictures (rest). I think the hike would be easier to enter this way (Navajo Loop) and leave the way we came in (Queen's Garden). People were going down in this place in flip flops. I would not recommend that.

We made it out! One 5-year-old was very, very tired! She walked most of the way herself, even the last, uphill part.

This is actually part of the rim trail between Sunset and Sunrise point. This hiker, with bad ankles, was limping a bit by this point.

If you are interested in last week’s Bryce Canyon (which is not technically a Canyon, but I will address that later if I have space) episode, go here.

My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!