Bryce Canyon National Park

For Labor Day weekend we spent 3 nights at Bryce Canyon with family. My parents and sister, Bridgett came from New Mexico, and my sister, Heidi, and her husband Mark came with their kids, Joshua, Hannah, Rachel and Sara. We had a really great time camping and hiking and checking out the park. Most of us had never been to Bryce before and I was amazed at how unique and amazing it is, so close to Zions, but so different. We had some truely interesting weather while we were there as well. Luckily we were well prepared and able to stay dry and warm for the most part. Of course, we took about a million pictures, so here are a few highlights, followed by a slideshow for anyone with a long enough attention span.

This is a view of the main canyon from Bryce point as one of the storms was rolling in.

Like alot of other National Parks, Bryce has started offering shuttle service from places in and around the park. We stayed in a nice campground just outside the park, with a pool and a great grass tent camping area. We were also able to take the shuttle from there, which was super exciting for all of the kids, especially the Larson kids who had never ridden public transit except when visiting us in Salt Lake a couple of years ago. Gavin tried to pretend that he was an old pro at riding the bus and bragged to his cousins about having ridden one before. Here we are all waiting on the first day... the sunny and warm day.

Heidi and I... the photographers of the last photo.

We all survived on 2.5 mile hike which was beautiful and dropped down into the canyon. The hardest part was climbing back out at the end, since almost everyone was carrying a kid on their backs or shoulders for most of it. They all hiked really well, it was just hard to climb up the steep trail with short legs.

When the storm started to roll in, we realized that our tents had been spread out to be in the shade, but were also all sitting in low areas that would collect water. So we moved them to the highest area and grouped them together to fit under a tarp Mark had packed for just such a storm. The word tarp is kind of an understatement as the thing was about as big as my house and easily covered all 3 tents with walking room in between and a nice sitting area on one side. It was a nice tent city, and we all stayed dry and warm at night.

Then the storm rolled in... This is the view from Rainbow Point at the south end of the park. Usually you can see about 200 miles from this point... all the way to the Grand Canyon. When were were there, you could see about 20 feet, and it was freezing.

Gavin, Joshua, Hannah, Rachel and Nana.

Maybe we would have seen something like this. Caleb and Vatti did a sunset hike, and caught this amazing glimpse.