I made French toast for breakfast. We got to the Bryce visitor center about 8:30 and talked with the ranger about what hike to take today. We hiked a three mile loop that was a combination of two trails, the Queen’s Garden and the Navajo Pass.

First, some interesting plants and animals:

The hoodoos, which we learned comes from Southern Paiute and is an expression of fear (“hoooo doooo!!” like “ohhhh noooo!!”) were really amazing to see. The hike took us down into the canyon, through tunnels and around switchbacks.

We took some pictures on these trails so the Yatzecks can try and duplicate them when they visit in a week or so. There’s a map to show them where to look for the spots too.

Here is the Yatzecks post from weeks later where they recreated our poses. https://wp.me/peTbeK-Yu

The Navajo Pass gave us two options. One more strenuous, and one less. After a discussion we decided to all take the less strenuous side. I’m glad we did because it was plenty strenuous with steep switchbacks. Also someone got injured on Wallstreet (the harder path) while we were there which caused lots of hikers to get stuck on the path until the search and rescue team carried her out (sprained ankle?).

Speaking of sprained ankles, a teen who was there hiking with a large group also injured her ankle and was carried up said steep switchbacks by the group leaders and THEY PASSED US! Very embarrassing. I blame it on not being used to the altitude because I was getting crazy out of breath with minimal exertion.

Nova had a try with my camera on the Navajo Pass and these are the pictures she took. The first one is one Nole took of her in action.

Nole, Asa and Esme went ahead during the steep climbing phase. Nova, Cal and I stuck together in the back of the pack. Eventually, Cal left us as well. We were THAT slow. Here are pictures Nole took after we split off.

By the time we were done, we were very dusty.

We left as thunder was booming in the distance and some light showers were starting when we got back to the visitor center. We each earned an “I hiked the hoodoos” sticker. The three younger kids and I also earned the Junior Ranger badges. On the way back to the campsite, we stopped at the Grand Staircase visitor center and picked up badges there too.

We stopped at our campground visitor center and got ice cream. They have wifi there but unfortunately it was down. I was hoping to upload some of the pictures I took for the blog today but we ended up going back later and everything was up and running again.

By the time we made it back to the camper it was about 3:30. We rested for a bit then made an early dinner since we skipped lunch. Nole grilled burgers and hot dogs and I made some sides. We had ice cream again, this time from our freezer in the camper (hey, it’s vacation!) and the kids decided to have a movie night and watch the newer Annie movie.

Nole and the boys finally got some use out of the bikes and checked out the campground earlier and we plan to see more of this beautiful park as a family tomorrow.