Day 2 - Bryce Canyon

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7:55 am - Sunday - October 22nd - Bryce Canyon - 25º F, humidity 60%, wind 5 mph out of the west....feels - CALM.  Forecast high for Bryce Canyon this day is 64º F with sunny skies......PERFECT!

It was quite cold Saturday morning, and we did not leave the coach to go hiking until after 11 am.......it is recommended by management that one turns their water 'OFF' at night to avoid the faucet freezing......while I was using my heated hose, it does nothing for the faucet, so we complied by turning it off around 11 pm, and using the fresh water in our fresh water tank via the water pump.  Sure enough, that faucet was frozen solid Saturday morning until after we left to go hiking.

We chose a nice beginning hike called the 'Queen's Garden/Navajo Loop' which combines two trails about 3.6 miles in total length.  As might be expected, the park was quite busy at 11 am on a Saturday even with the very, very cold temps....the high for Saturday was 50º F....I don't know if it actually got that high.  At any rate, we had a little difficulty finding a parking spot, but finally secured a spot about 2/10's of a mile from the Queen's Garden trailhead.......

......both TLE and I were 'layered' up.....me with three layers....as we began our trek into the bowels of Bryce Canyon.......

......one feels compelled to stop every 90 seconds to take more pictures......the lighting in the morning on this trail really brings out the colors in the 'hoodoos'......

 There are a 1/2 dozen of these little tunnels carved in the 'hoodoos' to allow the trail to continue

.....the pictures I have chosen to upload for this latest missive are just a fraction of the ones I actually recorded.  I am really happy with the quality of the shots I captured on my Samsung Galaxy Note 5 phone camera.  Finally we came to the end of the 'Queen's Garden' trail, at which time I chose to remove one of my 3 layers........

 Queen Victoria

.....we continued on connecting to the Navajo Loop/Wall Street trail......I had no idea why it was called 'Wall Street' until we began the almost 600' vertical climb to Sunset Point.......

 The beginning of 'Wall Street'....essentially a vertical slot canyon with dozens of short switchbacks built by wonderful trail architects many years ago

 Beginning the climb

Looking down....about 1/2 way up at this point

......at last we reached Sunset Point, and what a spectacular view it is!  We took a few minutes to enjoy the view, then began our trek back to Sunrise Point, and our car utilizing the 'Rim Trail', which, as one might suspect, follows the rim of the canyon.....

.....as we walked along the 'Rim Trail' we passed a number of these log benches, which looked remarkably familiar to me.......

....why do they look familiar to me?  Well, in 1953 my parents took my sister and I on our first RV trip, and one of the places we stopped was Bryce Canyon.....

......I was convinced we were going to fall over the cliff into Bryce Canyon...........I am the one with my head buried in my hands......I was only 4 years old, but I remember that instance!

As I often do when we hike I turned on my 'Strava' program on my phone and recorded our hike.....we averaged 21 minutes and 6 seconds per mile for 3.6 miles......

.....while this is a short hike compared to our Yellowstone hikes, we have not hiked at altitude in over a month, and we are at over 8,000' elevation, so this was the perfect hike to get us on the road to acclimation.  We'll set out again Sunday (today) on a little more ambitious hike....stayed tuned!

We watched game 7 of the MLB ALCS (American League Championship Series) between the Yankees and Astros.....it was a close game for 5 innings, but then the Astros began to chip away ultimately scoring 4 runs to zero by the Yankees, and won the right to join the Dodgers in the World Series, which begins Tuesday.

Thanks for stopping by!

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