Bryce Canyon, Utah - Day 2

Sunday, October 1st

Ray left early this morning to get the "prime" spot at Bryce Point for a better sunrise shot of Bryce Amphitheatre. Freya and I stayed in bed for another 45 minutes. Clear skies this morning so he should have some great pictures. (He did!) Beautiful colours.

Bryce Amphitheatre

Ray's favorite spot.

Hard to pick just one picture!

When Ray came back he had a bit of a rest and a quick bite to eat. We then piled back into the car and off to the Mossy Creek Trail and the Water Canyon Waterfall, a short distance down Hwy 12 towards Tropic. The object was to get pictures from the bottom of some hoodoos. What a wonderful 1/2 mile trail. We took our time and stopped frequently for pictures.

"At first, this canyon known as Water Canyon, might look like any ordinary Bryce Canyon kind of canyon. It's not. From 1890-1892 mormon pioneers labored with picks and shovels to carve an irrigation ditch from the East Fork of the Sevier River, through the Paunsaugunt Plateau, into this canyon.

Every year since its completion in 1892 (except during the drought of 2002), this canal known as the Tropic Ditch has supplied the communities of Tropic and Cannonville with irrigation water."

Here are some pictures of our walk.

We first walked up to the little waterfall.

 And then up a short little trail to the Mossy Cave, which is really like a "grotto" with dripping water from above the cave.

In this picture you can just see the stream of drips dropping from the ceiling of this cave.

I asked Ray to take this picture ... an "artsy fartsy" picture. lol

A beautiful walk.

After the walk we decided to check out Kodachrome Basin's campsite as it was only 10 miles away. Their website said they were full for the whole time so we thought we would make sure. Yup it was ... today they only had 9 first come first serve options available at 9am and none would fit us the park guy said. We decided to drive a little way down the road to Grovesner Arch and checked out a forest service road that freecampsites.net had mentioned. We did find a spot about a 1/2 mile down the road ... but the road surface is soft red dirt and with possible showers tonight, not an option for tomorrow. The roads look to still be recovering from the rainy storm last week. Apparently Bryce Canyon and Escalante National Parks are real busy September and October after their rainy season. Who knew.

We decided to stay for a few more days on the FSR 090 right outside Bryce Canyon National Park. In fact, we set up a tent to reserve our spot tomorrow when we have to leave the RV Park. There is still more to see in this area so it will be nice to have a slower pace for a couple of days. Don't know how the cell coverage is though. 

Back at camp I did my "suzy homemaker" stuff, several loads of laundry, baked an apple pie and made pot roast (in my instant pot) with fixin's for our Sunday dinner. Best part, left-overs for tomorrow.