Bryce Canyon National Park

    I had been looking forward to Bryce Canyon since our initial planning of this trip. The pictures always looked amazing so I decided to not show the kids anything about the canyon until we got there. I wanted their first look to be in person.

    We got to the park in the early evening and did our usual visitor center stuff. They had a great setup for kids and all three enjoyed the prairie dog town that they could crawl through. Sully talked me into buying him a hiking pole with the promise that he would walk with it instead of riding on my shoulders.

    After we set up camp, we took the short drive to the rim of the canyon. It was impressive. The late light hit the strange rock features called hoodoos and gave them a great orangish glow. The kids could see people walking down among them and were excited to find out that we'd be hiking down there in the morning.

   The weather was cooler than Zion so we enjoyed a nice night without the rain fly on the tent. I woke up early and climbed up the hillside behind our campsite to the edge of the canyon. I was the only person up there for the sunrise and it was the most peaceful experience. Kids and canyon edges don't make for a relaxing experience so I was glad to be alone for a little bit. To top it all off, birds were very active and I found two new species to add to my list.

    I returned to the tent to find everyone still sleeping so I got our food out of the car before waking them. We had a quick breakfast and then returned to the canyon so we could beat the crowds. The trail entering the hoodoos was steep and full of switchbacks so the kids had fun going down. It was really magical having those tall walls of rock surrounding us as we wandered down the path. We took a side trail for a short distance into the canyon floor where it turned into a pine forest before returning to the loop trail around the rock formations.

    The trail ascended through more hoodoos with even steeper switchbacks, but somehow Sully powered through it with the aid of his new hiking pole. To get back to the top all three kids climbed over 560 feet without our help. My arms and shoulders thanked them when we finished the loop. It was a group consensus that Bryce Canyon was our favorite hike of the trip and the park joined Theodore Roosevelt as a frontrunner for best park. It'll be a hard one to beat!