"Peek-A-Boo!"

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7:33 am - Tuesday - October 24th - Bryce Canyon - 30º F, 83% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the west by northwest.....once again.....no wind detected here at Ruby's Inn RV Park.  Forecast high for today is 63º F with another cloudless day promised!  I did not turn the water spigot off last night (forgot), but it didn't get below freezing long enough to freeze anything, and it looks like tonight will be the same......we're in the middle of a 'heatwave'!

We really don't like hiking the same trails over and over again when we are in a new place, so we try to organize our hikes with as little of that as possible.  In Yellowstone it was unavoidable in numerous cases as many of the hikes we did were 'out and back' hikes, but here in Bryce Canyon NP there are a LOT of 'loop' trails which enable one to do a large circle ending back at your starting point without covering the same ground twice.  We like that.  When we were doing the Sunrise Point/Navajo loop trail on Saturday we saw a sign at one of the junctures pointing to the 'Peek-A-Boo' loop trail.  

Peek-A-Boo Loop Trail

This trail can be accessed from Sunrise Point, Sunset Point, and Bryce Point.....since we had already done hikes from the first two we chose Bryce Point as our starting point......

.....the elevation at the Bryce Point trailhead is 8,300' above sea level........

......the trail begins with a rather sharp drop in altitude over the first mile with numerous switchbacks......

......the views are immediately captivating and we find ourselves stopping a dozen times in the first mile to take pictures.....

.....eventually the trail begins to become a little 'flatter'......

 Thor's Hammer 

.....every time we turn a corner, and there are many corners, we are greeted with one amazing view after another......

 Wall of Windows

......we finally come to the 'Peek-A-Boo' trail loop sign at the 1 mile mark....you can do the trail in either a clockwise, or counter clockwise direction.....we chose the clockwise option.  We descended another 1/2 mile where we came to a actual restroom (pit toilet) located near the horse corrals (this is a multi use trail used by bipeds and horses alike) which we utilized.....whenever you see a restroom you use it whether, or not you think you need to go....😏

From the horse corral the trail begins to ascend once again, and the descend, ascend sequence will be repeated numerous more times over the course of the 3 mile 'Peek-A-Boo' loop trail.

Over the course of the 3.5 months we spent in Yellowstone we only hiked two days in a row on a few occasions.  Monday was a our third consecutive day of hiking, and as one might imagine, every single hike (with the exception of the Rim Trail) begins with a long descent into Bryce Canyon, and ends with a long climb out of the canyon.  At any rate, by the time we had covered about 1.5 miles of the loop TLE turned to me and said....."Clarke, you have to know this trail is kicking my a$$!".....uh oh.....she never complains.......well, she was only verbalizing what I was thinking and feeling.  I reminded her that we still had a little over 2.5 miles to go, with much of that being of the uphill variety, and all we could do was continue on at a little slower pace, and take more breaks along the trail.....of course, it helps that the beauty of the terrain helped take our minds off our collective discomfort......

.....we came to another of those, as I call them, vertical slot canyons where the terrain seems to be straight up, and involves a dozen, or so quick switchbacks......here we have just finished climbing the vertical slot canyon and are greeted at top with a short tunnel taking us to a new vista.....I think this is why the trail is called 'Peek-A-Boo'......there is a new vista around every corner.....

 TLE named these the 'Red Headed Hoodoos'....the white ones in the middle of the picture are all capped in red.

I thought you might appreciate some video of what walking these well groomed trails looks like....both of these videos were done within 1/2 mile of our climb back to Bryce Point.....

Walking the trail

......we took our final break, which included a snack, at the sign indicating '1 mile' to Bryce Point.......I only mention this sign as it became obvious by this time that unlike most of the other mileage signs in Bryce Canyon, this sign is incorrect.....the distance to Bryce Point is more like 1.25 miles.  Our total hiking distance should have been 5 miles exactly based on all the signs, but our mileage total (see below) ended up being 5.5.....

Should read '1.25 ML'!

.....we reached the Bryce Point parking lot, and our Beetle around 1:45 pm......I never heard another peep out of TLE after her one dramatic declaration.  We were both very happy to have finished this hike in style!

So, the numbers......5.5 miles traversed, moving time 2 hours, 16 minutes, 11 seconds, 24 minutes and 43 seconds per mile average, 1,322' of elevation gain, and 988 caloric units incinerated....

......and with Monday we come to the end of our hiking adventures in Bryce Canyon NP!  We covered about 17.5 miles over 3 successive days with a lot of elevation gain and loss.....our legs need some time to recuperate!  There are many more trails to hike here in Bryce, but they will have to wait for another time.  We'll take Tuesday to rest a little, do some laundry, and some other cleaning as we will be spending the next 8 days (beginning Wednesday) boon docking 133 miles south of our present location where the day time temps will be in the high 60's and low 70's every single day!

Thanks for stopping by!

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