Bryce and the Capitol

From Zion we enter Dixie National Forest which has stumpy pinnacles of red rock that could've easily featured in the Arnie film 'Total Recall' as a landscape on Mars. It all looks even odder with the thick snow lying atop the red sand under foot.


An 18 mile road leads one-way along the rim of Bryce Canyon. This place just happens to be stunning as well. Again this is another place I never thought existed on this planet. Thousands of rock pinnacles, called Hoodoos, stand up against the wind in a naturally rounded amphitheatre of the canyon.
Because of it's altitude, just over 9,000ft, and position Bryce Canyon gets around 200 days of icy conditions in a year. Snow lies on parts of the rocks and the different shades of oranges and reds look superb as the light fades for the day.


That night we stop in the tiny hamlet of Tropic on the edge of the national park. Luckily we just get into the only open restaurant before it closes....at 7pm! They sure know how to live it up here! At least the food was good and the motel room had a good heater, handy in this chilly climate. Just when we had the slight inclination to camp for the night the temperatures up on the bulletin in the Visitors Centre instantly put a stop to that. -14 degrees Celsius overnight. No thank you.
More stunning views from various view points along the icy edge of the long canyon's edge before we move on. The stunning views continue outside the park and through the couple of small settlements along the road to Capitol Reef National Park, of which I knew nothing about.
It turns out that Capitol Reef is in fact a huge crease in the landscape due to large shifts in the tectonic plates. The land has a Death Valley quality about it with multi-coloured layered walls of rock all over the show. In many places large straight-edged red rock shoots up vertically towards the sky and fans out nearer the floor showing different layers of colours.
We drive along a narrow road that soon runs out of tarmac and becomes a dirt trail squeezing between overhanging rocks and cliff faces. We take a walk along a dry riverbed and scale up smooth rock to water pools spotting petrified trees along the way. It's hard to imagine that wood thousands of years old turns into rock but it does and looks superbly yellow, black, purple and green striped.
We also see ancient petroglyphs carved into the rock by native Americans centuries ago still looking vivid on the rock face. Characters are visible, possibly hunting, along with the odd sun depiction. Further along the trail are the wall inscribings from the late 1800's from American pioneers who forged a trail along the riverbed. Not quite the same as the petroglyphs, a bit like 'Jeff was ere 1880' and so on.
We walk a trail along a gushing river leading up towards a huge natural rock arch sculpted by wind over many years. It's huge and voices, mainly of obnoxious teenagers, echo around us.
On the way to Capitol Reef we'd seen a few trucks pulling trailers with ATV's and scrambler motorcycles on. We stop overnight near Capitol reef in the middle of nowhere at the only open motel and it's packed full of bikers. A few older guys who seemed to have biked straight here through the mud are hanging around the entrance and trailers full of bikes are everywhere.
The landscape around Capitol Reef is grey and strangely undulating. All of a sudden we see where all these bikers are spending their time. Guys jump over huge mounds of earth by the side of the road and off into the distance. Motorbike trails cover the whole area. The whole area is a giant playground and it's just a case of parking up getting on yer bike and ride. There's almost a quarry look to the place but somehow it all manages to look good.
Then we're back on wide open plateau again with distance mountains ever present in the background. A policeman has pulled someone over nearby an overlook to the mountains where we're parked. By our car is a conglomeration of animal skin and hooves but no blood or flesh. Odd.
Further down the road a group of young lads of about 16 are chasing each other by the side of the road near their huge brand new pick up truck. I just knew that one of them would run out into the road and of course that's what happened as I approached at 65 miles an hour. They didn't even look once. If I'd have arrived in that spot a couple of seconds later there would've been a serious mess. Thankfully we were just far enough away not to have to swerve into the sand of the roadside.
We drive on as black clouds point down at the desert and tumble weeds roll across the road at speed, a storm is brewing.