Bryce Canyon - The Las Vegas of Geology.

As is our wont, we turned up after our spectacular drive, reservationless at a small town to find every motel and hotel full.  It was Friday night and unknown to us until now, Columbus Day Weekend.  Americans tend to get what we would consider appallingly short holiday leave and it seems that a three day weekend is a good opportunity to go and stay where we want to.   A kindly receptionist/waitress found us a room fifteen miles down the road.  All’s well etc…. and anyway it’s quite exciting really, not knowing what’s going to happen next.

The following day we took a high level mountain route heading towards Bryce Canyon with further great sheets of Aspens littering the countryside with colour.  At one point we were on a pretty narrow ridge about twice as wide as the tarmac with precipitous drops either side of us.  The scenery has been tremendous and Utah appears to have a lot of the very best bits.  There is a lot of bare ground on show rather than green tree covered slopes but of course we get to see the colours and shapes of the underlying rocks.  Much of the most spectacular views consist of varying shades of rusty red and terracotta although there are large amounts of very pale rock that looks like snow from a distance.  Just like many beautiful things though, the land can be close to ugly and often the landscape went in that direction, looking for all the world like industrial spoil heaps.  We decided that this was usually where the parched land supported few plants and looked completely devoid of life as we drove past.   By itself, anywhere else, all of it would be a tourist destination, it is just that some of it suffers by comparison with all the other wonders to be seen.

At one viewpoint (overlook here in the States) a Swiss motorhome drove in and we had a quick chat with the man who had been an accountant/tax advisor.  Their van stayed in the States and they flew over regularly to explore different places.   I mentioned that I’d never seen a Swiss vehicle without the Canton identified on the number plate and he told us that it was dummy plate so that he couldn’t be caught for parking or speeding tickets.  That’s Swiss accountancy for you, non-disclosure.

Here in Utah we come across a couple of local beers which have obviously been named to wind up the Mormons.  Both brewed in Salt Lake City, one was Evolution Ale, billed as a tribute to Charles Darwin with the label food pairing suggestions as ”small mammals, invertebrates”  and the other was Polygamy Porter with the tag line “why have just one ?”.

Now we get to Bryce Canyon.  Oh, what a place.  Once again we’re able to use our annual National Park Pass which has proved to be a great purchase.  The best thing is that we bought it in October last year in California and it runs until the end of the month it was purchased in the following year, so nearly 13 months.  It was $80 and we’ve used it for two one month trips here.  When I tell you that entrance to the National Parks is regularly $30, you can see why it was a good buy. 

The road into Bryce is along a ridge but quite a wide one and heavily wooded on both sides.  So to begin with there were just a few glimpses to our right of merely (merely !) a spectacular mountain view.  Then the road approached the left hand side of the ridge and we saw what Bryce was all about.   A very wide panorama looking eastwards towards distant mountains, while in the foreground stood pink rocks wind and weather cut to amazing shapes and pinnacles.  If anyone had designed it they would undoubtedly have been on a particularly potent hallucinogen.  We are talking here of these utterly fantastic shapes covering several miles.  The pinnacles looked like a cross between a huge terracotta army and thousands of evil trolls frozen by being covered in pink candlewax.  Other areas looked like some fantastic science fiction city or a Gaudi brainstorm.  You may have got a little hint that I was impressed.  I have never seen anything like it.  As sundown approached, it all got pinker still and suddenly the shadow of the western wall of the canyon began to ease across the landscape.  There were one or two photographs taken. 

The following day we were back early-ish to walk down into the canyon itself which was surprisingly unstrenuous.  A frosty windscreen to start with as we began to drive to Bryce but it was still in the eighties by the time the sun got properly fired up.  The Bryce landscape was just as unworldly close up with holes worn through rocks and ridiculous shapes everywhere, as it had seemed from the top.  We definitely saw ET and a whole row of Homer Simpsons while one officially named outcrop is Queen Victoria.  There are also some great gnarled old trees, Limber Pines in particular and I can’t put it better than this quote we came across “Limber Pines have a way of growing in dramatic places, taking picturesque attitudes, and getting themselves photographed, written about and cared for….. “ – Donald Culross Peattie.

I know that these notes are all written from a British perspective and although I’ve been to the States about a dozen times things still strike me sometimes as different from back home.  Even the smallest restaurant has someone whose job it is to just fill water glasses so often one person shows us to a table, then a water person, then a menu arrives and a different person comes along to take our order.  Also, never have I heard anyone in an American café or restaurant say, as I have heard in Britain on a number of occasions “sorry the kitchen closed 5 minutes ago”.   Many if not all of you will know that refills for drinks, usually coffee but often soft drinks as well if a couple of gallons of Coca cola aren’t enough, are free.   What I can’t understand is that coffee can usually be ordered as small (that’s large), medium (that’s huge) or large (enough to drown in).  I usually have a small one which is quite big enough but then I get offered refills.  So why would anyone pay for a large ?

We’ve had yet another great trip.  Our problem is that having seen so much wonderful scenery we are tending to get a bit blasé and I know we’ve become a bit punch-drunk with so much visual stimulation.  Heather said it’s like having a really big box of chocolates and eating them all at once.  It means that we probably haven’t appreciated it all as much as we should have and the simply lovely landscapes are overshadowed by the truly jaw dropping ones.  Perhaps we should just go to Belgium next time.